Tough practice sessions, hard work and coaching were required to win the game. That’s how Air Combat Command boss Gen. Kenneth Wilbach expects his airmen to gear up for their own potential fight — not on the gridiron, but across the Pacific.

“We’re going to plan on doing hard things together and we’re going to give opportunities to fail,” Wilsbach said in an online conversation with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies on Wednesday. “Leaders are going to coach and mentor, and when you do that, just like the Kansas City Chiefs, you can win.”

Wilsbach’s comments came three weeks after he caused a stir across the force with a command-wide memo directing all ACC wings to complete inspections within a month to ensure all airmen are adhering to dress and grooming standards, and that personnel records match up with medical and religious exemptions on matters such as beards. The directive has sparked a frenzy of questions on social media about which uniforms airmen must wear for the checks and sent some scrambling to find dress blues amid limited stock at base exchanges.

He doubled down Wednesday, arguing that attention to small details forms the building blocks of success. The four-star added that he’s empowered all airmen, regardless of rank, to point out when another airman is not meeting standards.

“What I learned many years ago is … when it gets hard and you need to do something difficult, because you’ve been disciplined to pay attention to the details … you can succeed,” Wilsbach said.

The general himself was inspected Tuesday — his first time since he was a Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet — at ACC headquarters at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia.

Wilsbach took over as the head of ACC in February, the same month that Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall announced a sweeping set of initiatives to prepare the service for future conflict with China and other advanced militaries. That includes an expanded role for ACC, which would take on a broader role overseeing force-wide combat readiness.

The command is also slated to shed some of its subordinate organizations, like those overseeing cyber and Middle East operations, to give them more control over their own planning.

Under that plan, Wilsbach said ACC would be the “synchronizer” for exercises that contribute to other major commands’ ability to jump into action. He added that commands in charge of assets like tankers and bombers should still be responsible for their own readiness.

“We certainly can be the synchronizer and help manage the exercises all over the world, so that their crews and our crews have the opportunity to work together,” Wilsbach said.

ACC would rely on commanders around the globe and their service components, like Air Forces Central, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa and Pacific Air Forces, to pull together forces who don’t typically collaborate, Wilsbach said.

“There’s a lot of work for Air Combat Command in the future,” he said.

And while ACC airmen face individual inspections, wings may expect to see more operational readiness inspections as well. Some of those will pop up without notice, Wilsbach said.

“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to say, ‘Hey, you’re having an inspection today. You generate, you deploy, you employ and you redeploy, and that’s what you’re gonna get inspected on,’” he said.

A combination of no-notice inspections and previously scheduled ones have already gone forward, Wilsbach said, in which the command aims to look for pain points.

“When you can assess where you are, then you can put resources in areas that tend to be weak or that you need to improve on,” he said. “These inspections have helped us.”

For several days in late June, Toth, the commander of the 22nd Operations Group at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, relied on his Netflix queue to stay awake, adjusting his sleep cycle to go to bed around 3:30 a.m. local time and waking up around noon.

“There was a bunch of things in the queue,” Toth said of his binge sessions on the streaming platform. “And I just kind of let it pick things out for me.”

Flying a KC-46A Pegasus tanker nonstop around the globe takes stamina. For the McConnell-based airmen who recently pulled it off on REACH046, it involved adjusting work-sleep cycles to synchronize with events, like crucial aerial refueling rendezvous that require razor-sharp focus, that helped make the sortie a success.

“Trying to stay up … until 4 a.m. is difficult, especially when you’re used to getting up around that time to come into work,” Toth said.

Dubbed “Project Magellan,” the flight builds on a sortie that took off from McConnell in May 2022, when a KC-46 from the 22nd Air Refueling Wing flew a record 24 hours straight around the contiguous United States. It also comes on the heels of a staggering 36-hour mission flown by the New Hampshire Air National Guard’s 157th Air Refueling Wing, one that went halfway around the world and back in November of that year.

The latest mission took off from McConnell June 29 and landed back at the Kansas base, home to the 22nd ARW, on July 1. The crew flew more than 24,000 miles in the process.

Along the way, the aircraft and its crew of nine airmen — Toth as the aircraft commander, three additional instructor pilots, two flying crew chiefs, two boom operator instructors and a flight surgeon — stretched the endurance of the Air Force’s newest tanker jet as the service prepares for a protracted battle in the Pacific, one in which it may need to surge troops and supplies quickly.

The first KC-46A was delivered to McConnell in 2019. The Air Force plans to buy 179 KC-46A tankers from Boeing under a $4.9 billion deal; so far, the aerospace contractor has delivered 84 of the aircraft to the Air Force, including five so far this year, according to a Boeing spokesperson and an announcement of second-quarter deliveries released Tuesday.

“We wanted to demonstrate the ability of the KC-46 to go around the world,” while also demonstrating Air Mobility Command’s shifting focus on the Pacific, Toth said. “So, we decided that we needed to go westbound based on showing our ability to project power anywhere in the world, but starting out in the Pacific.”

The crew relied on beyond-line-of-sight and other onboard communications to link with air and ground assets as it traversed the globe, aligning with an initiative set by Air Mobility Command’s four-star boss Gen. Mike Minihan to connect 25% of the command’s fleet by 2025.

Heading west, REACH046 gassed up midair four times, meeting up with tankers from the 22nd ARW that were prepositioned at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam; U.S. Central Command; and RAF Mildenhall, England.

It also offloaded fuel to eight other aircraft during the trip, including two KC-46As from McConnell, one of which left with REACH046 and gassed up over the California coast; a C-17 Globemaster III it met in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; two F-15 Strike Eagles on a sortie in CENTCOM; and three B-2 Spirit Bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri.

Coordinating those rendezvous, which requires scheduling airspace, took months of advance planning, and was lead by Capt. Cody Donahue, a pilot and executive officer from the 22nd OG.

“Air refueling is all about being at a certain point in space at a certain time,” Toth said.

Real-time updates were crucial in achieving those goals, as the aircraft was often beyond radio contact for long stretches of the flight, Toth said. Two teams of four crew members, divided into ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams, alternated between flying and sleeping in cycles that shortened to match critical needs, such as flying over the ocean or during nighttime, according to Capt. Jacob Heyrend, Magellan’s flight surgeon.

Crews were monitored for fatigue during the flight, including wearing smart devices. They were also enrolled in a Department of Defense-Army fatigue study run by a contractor that has advised NASA astronauts and professional athletes and performers.

While the crew continues to evaluate lessons learned, they credit their success in part to putting in early work with Heyrend to customize sleep schedules. Three days before takeoff, Team A adjusted their bedtime to approximately 4 a.m., while Team B began retiring at 4 or 5 p.m.

“My dinner was basically during my kids’ breakfast,” Capt. T.J. Buckley, a pilot and member of Team B, said.

Early planning, coupled with climate control, adjustable LED lighting and assigned bunks helped the airmen get a good night’s — or day’s — sleep in the air. Shift handoffs required trusting their fellow airmen to control the aircraft while one team focused on resting up.

Project Magellan also notched firsts for the airmen, as well as for the Air Force, with a new record for the KC-46 as well as the longest sortie for AMC.

For Master Sgt. Patrick Murray, a boom operator on Team B, fueling multiple aircraft became a highlight of his 16-year career.

“Our training and our mission preparation and briefs leading up to executing this mission were fantastic,” Murray said.

It also included a birthday.

Capt. Daison Batangan, an instructor pilot who flew on Team A, turned 31 somewhere between Hawaii and Guam, based on Kansas local time, on June 30. The crew celebrated with strawberry shortcake and an unlit candle, packed by Batangan’s wife.

“The crew was able to wake up from their slumber and sing me ‘Happy Birthday’,” he said.

The return to flying followed a “multi-phased” approach to ensure the readiness of crews and follows a “meticulous and data-driven approach” that includes the development of added safety controls, the Air Force said in a news release.

“We remain steadfast in our commitment to ensuring the safety of the men and women who operate our aircraft and the safety of our community both on base and in Japan,” 21st Special Operations Squadron Commander Lt. Col. Matthew Davis said in a statement. “These safety mitigation measures have been taken seriously, and we would not fly this aircraft without full confidence in the measures, the maintenance professionals implementing them, and the skilled professionals who fly it.”

The U.S. military has said it doesn’t expect its fleet of more than 400 tiltrotor Osprey aircraft to return to full flying operations until at least mid-2025. Naval Air Systems Command, which leads the joint program office overseeing the aircraft, began allowing the Osprey to fly again in March after a three-month grounding was lifted but with added restrictions.

Ospreys can be flown like an airplane and take off and land like a helicopter. Its vertical take offs and landings make it useful for carrier landings as well as for special operators operating in austere environments. The controversial aircraft has suffered a string of fatal crashes since being introduced into special operations more than two decades ago with four mishaps responsible for the deaths of 20 service members in the last two years.

The military grounded the Ospreys in 2022 and again in 2023, after a series of “hard clutch engagements” that occurred when the input quill assembly, which attaches the Osprey’s engine to its proprotor gear box, wore out earlier than expected. A redesigned clutch is expected to begin testing with fielding anticipated mid-2025. Testing is also underway on a vibration sensing system upgrade to identify complements that need to replaced and a proprotor gearbox pinion bearing redesign is awaiting production and installation.

The military has said the Nov. 29 crash of GUNDAM 22 was the result of a material failure that hadn’t been seen before on the Osprey. An investigation into that crash is nearing completion.

The Marine Corps, which operates hundreds of the aircraft, used them in Sweden as part of Exercise Baltic Operations with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which last week conducted flight operations with the Osprey from the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp in the Mediterranean Sea. The Navy, which owns about 30 of the aircraft, is sidelined from using them in its carrier support mission and remains barred from flying them more than 30 minutes from an airfield where they could land in an emergency.

The Air Force owns about 50 Ospreys. While the 353rd resumes flying, crews from the 27th Special Operations Wing, based at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, have also resumed limited flying operations based on aircraft availability after spending months keeping up their proficiency in simulator training, something Japan-based crews have also done while preparing to return to the air. That includes putting pilots and flight engineers through a specific return-to-flight simulator syllabus, Capt. Paul Danielson, a flight commander and Osprey pilot with the Cannon-based 20th Special Operations Squadron, told Air Force Times.

Cannon-based maintainers continued sustainment necessary on the CV-22s during the stand down and were trained on maintenance protocols directed by NAVAIR to return to fly, 20th Special Operations Maintenance Squadron Commander Maj. Shelby Olivera said, adding that they’re also completing rigorous inspections. Squadrons are progressing through those protocols based on aircraft maintenance needs and personnel experience levels, she said.

As the 20th Special Operations Squadron focuses on reaching basic proficiency, the unit is first focusing on getting flight instructors back in the air. Pilots and maintainers look are looking forward to getting Ospreys flying once again, Danielson and Olivera said.

“The morale of the squadron, I think, has gone up just seeing people fly,” Danielson said. “There’s also a good balance of understanding from the the crews that aren’t flying, understanding that the leadership is doing what is best just ensure safety moving forward.”

The aircraft, a modified Bombardier business jet outfitted with Northrop Grumman’s Battlefield Airborne Communications Node payload, or BACN, is lesser known than the Air Force’s stalwart fleet of bombers, fighters and cargo jets. Now, with U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, the E-11 has taken on a new behind-the-scenes role supporting the multinational mission to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Since March, the 430th Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron, the only unit in the Air Force to fly the aircraft, has supported more than 30 of the service’s airdrops in Gaza while operating out of an undisclosed location in U.S. Central Command. Pilots with the squadron who spoke with Air Force Times in an interview declined to discuss specific missions, but offered brief insights into their work in the region.

The Air Force has participated in 40 airdrops alongside coalition partners since March. Those missions were paused for more than a month as Israel’s invasion of the city of Rafah began in early May. The U.S. flew its most recent airdrop June 9.

“The BACN mission provides the Air Force, as well as joint and international partners, line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight interoperability, and that’s between dissimilar platforms with varying electronic capabilities,” 430th EECS Commander Lt. Col. R. Clayton “Vector” McCart said. “We capture, translate, combine and, ultimately, relay and extend legacy and modern comms and data links.”

That means flagging potential threats to the cargo aircraft ferrying shipments of food, any course corrections or other important details from mission planners and other troops around the area.

In a region as large as CENTCOM, airdrops can be derailed by a number of variables, from weather to other flight safety issues. The BACN aircraft, which carries two pilots, can quickly relay real-time changes coming from the Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar to mission partners on the front lines.

“We can monitor progress in a way that other platforms may not be able to see … as far as locations of the assets, the weather calls, etc. Weather plays a big factor in the airdrops off the coast of Gaza,” Capt. Britton “Rad” Ellington, an E-11A pilot who previously flew the service’s now-retired E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, aircraft, said.

With a range of more than 6,900 miles and a typical sortie time of around 10 hours, the aircraft can take over where satellite phones fail, and interpret transmissions between the military’s myriad communications systems that can’t otherwise connect. While AFCENT declined to say how many of the service’s seven E-11As are operating in theater, the 430th acts as a data lilypad for more than 1,000 hours every two weeks.

“We’re just not relegated to an airdrop. For instance, we could do that as a part of a larger expectation from CENTCOM leadership, and just move around the battlespace. … We’re not really tethered to any one location,” McCart said.

The E-11A is in the process of establishing its new home at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, within the 18th Airborne Command and Control Squadron. It’s one of four missions replacing JSTARS planes at Robins over the next several years; the squadron is expected to become fully operational by 2027.

The 430th EECS, which deploys out of the Middle East, and doubles as a training unit, will shift its training mission to Robins.

“Every sortie is a training sortie, in the sense that we learn every day that we fly,” McCart said.

The Warrant Officer Training School formally launched June 28 at the Jeanne M. Holm Center for Officer Accessions and Citizen Development at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

Activating the school is the next step in bringing back the service’s latest crop of warrant officers, who are to become technical and operational experts and advisers for the force in cyber operations and information technology as the service seeks to boost military readiness in a race to outpace China and other adversaries.

“The reintroduction of warrant officers to the Air Force is another example of the force adapting personnel policies to best compete in emerging security landscapes.” Holm Center Commander Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell said in a statement. “The warrant officer will serve on the virtual front lines, allowing us to stay ahead of rapidly advancing threats while safeguarding national security interests.”

The Air Force phased out warrant officers in 1959 after the establishment of the senior master sergeant and chief master sergeant ranks (E-8 and E-9). The service’s last warrant officer, Chief Warrant Officer James Long, retired from the 438th Transportation Squadron at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, in 1980, according to an Air Force history.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall formally announced plans for the new roles in February; the Air Force opened applications April 25. The first cohort of 60 warrant officers will be split into two classes of 30, with one class expected to begin in October and graduate in December before reporting to their duty stations the following month. The second class is expected to begin in early 2025.

Competition for the 60 slots was tough: 301 airmen who applied for the roles met with the selection board, Air Force spokesperson Sarah Fiocco told Air Force Times. Those who make the cut are expected to be notified later this month.

The warrant officer curriculum will focus on five foundational principles, the Air Force said: communicate, advise, influence, innovate and integrate.

“We are in the business of producing airmen,” Maj. Nathaniel Roesler, commandant of the WOTS, said in a statement. “These specialists come to us with technical expertise, and our mission is to develop them to be better warfighters, advisors, and integrators, ready to fly, fight and win during great power competition. We will answer that call.”

Staff Sgt. Jorge Delgado, a 37-year-old airman assigned to the 341st Security Forces Squadron, died in the accident, the Air Force confirmed. He was one of four airmen traveling to work on base in the up-armored High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, the service said. Delgado enlisted in March 2014, according to Air Force personnel records.

Two first responders were also injured after arriving on the scene. The Air Force said two of the hurt airmen are in stable condition at a local medical facility; three have been discharged.

“Team Malmstrom and our surrounding community grieve not only the loss of an outstanding airman, but a family member and a friend,” 341st Missile Wing Commander Col. Dan Voorhies said in a statement. “As we help our impacted airmen and families, I urge us all to spend a little extra time checking in on one another, wrap our arms around those in need, and provide love and support, so we can keep enduring. Wing One is committed to the safety and security of our members, and we will continue to stand strong during this time.”

Additional information about the accident was not immediately available Tuesday. The Air Force said an investigation is ongoing.

This is the second Humvee-related death tied to Malmstrom since last October, and the third overall death related to the vehicle within the Air Force since September. Airman Trinity Reinhart, of the 90th Missile Security Forces Squadron at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, died Sept. 16 in an accident in a Colorado nuclear missile field near the Wyoming border. Another airman survived the crash.

About a month later, Airman Alton John, of the 341st Missile Security Forces Squadron, was hospitalized following a highway rollover south of the base; he died Oct. 27. Another airman was also hurt in the crash.

The Air Force has opened investigations into those accidents as well. Following those incidents, 20th Air Force — which oversees the service’s land-based nuclear missiles — changed the way Humvees with upgraded armor are used off-base, said Air Force Global Strike Command spokesperson Charles Hoffman. He declined to say what those changes entailed.

Nine airmen have died in government-owned motor vehicle accidents since October 2018, according to June 2024 Air Force Safety Center data.

A 2021 Government Accountability Office report found that 123 people had died in more than 3,750 noncombat ground vehicle accidents in the Army and Marine Corps between fiscal 2010 and 2019. Humvees were involved in more of those accidents than any other type of tactical vehicle, with rollovers accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total crashes. Military families, lawmakers and the Pentagon have pushed for years to avoid such accidents.

The U.S. military is in the process of replacing some of its four-decade-old Humvee fleet, which the Air Force uses to secure the nation’s missile sites, with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle — which promises a faster, smoother and more secure ride for ground troops. The Air Force plans to buy nearly 2,100 JLTVs.

A previous version of this story misstated Staff Sgt. Jorge Delgado’s age. He was 37.

Instead, a jury of eight fellow officers found Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart, the service’s former pilot training boss, guilty on multiple charges, including adultery, conduct unbecoming of an officer and dereliction of duty, for pursuing an unprofessional relationship with the woman as well as for controlling an airplane within 12 hours of consuming alcohol — violating the so-called “bottle-to-throttle” rule.

Stewart will forfeit up to $60,000 in pay, the Air Force said. He also faces a reprimand and will not be allowed to leave Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, for two months.

“We recognize the gravity of the charges and the profound impact these allegations have had, both on the accuser and my client,” Sherilyn Bunn, Stewart’s civilian attorney, said in a statement. “From the beginning, Maj. Gen. Stewart maintained his innocence, confident that the truth would emerge. This case has highlighted the need for a careful and respectful approach to allegations of sexual assault.”

Stewart initially pleaded not guilty on all charges during a hearing in March. But as the case moved forward last week, he pleaded guilty to charges of adultery and dereliction of duty for pursuing an unprofessional relationship with an unnamed woman between September 2022 and May 2023, according to a charge sheet obtained by Air Force Times.

He was subsequently found guilty of additional charges, including conduct unbecoming of an officer for inviting the woman to spend the night in his hotel room, and for dereliction of duty related to drinking and flying, by a jury that included eight generals who have reached at least the same rank as Stewart.

Stewart faced as much as two-and-a-half years in confinement for the charges of which he was convicted, and could have faced more than six decades in prison if convicted on the sexual assault charges.

The two-star allegedly penetrated the unidentified woman’s vulva with his mouth and penis without her consent on multiple occasions during a work trip to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, a training hub for airmen across the air mobility enterprise, during April 2023. Stewart’s attorneys contended that while he did have sex with the woman, it was consensual.

The woman — an officer who was Stewart’s subordinate — testified at the court-martial that though she didn’t want to have sex with her boss after a night of drinking, she complied with his advances because she was “dumbfounded” and saw no way to escape the situation, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Stewart flew a C-17 transport plane out of Oklahoma the following morning, the woman testified.

The female officer later reported the encounter to the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, the Express-News said.

She also said she was rattled by a text exchange in which Stewart suggested she sleep in his hotel room during a trip to an Air Force conference in Denver in March, the publication reported.

The woman added in court that she plans to retire in November rather than pursue a command position, the Express-News said.

“This case has been distressing for many, and we appreciate the sensitivity and seriousness with which it was handled,” Bunn said. “It is our hope that this verdict reinforces the importance of a just and fair legal system that upholds the principles of justice and integrity.”

Stewart was fired from his job leading 19th Air Force, which manages a large swath of airman training programs, in May 2023 amid a misconduct investigation by Air Education and Training Command boss Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson. Details of the reprimand he will face were not immediately available Monday.

Josh Connolly, senior vice president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group for military sexual assault victims, said the case should never have gone to court-martial at all. The lesser offenses should have been handled administratively after a military judge in a preliminary hearing last year recommended that the sexual assault charges be dropped, he said.

But Robinson opted to take the case to court-martial anyway, ahead of new Pentagon rules that removes prosecution of some of the most serious criminal cases — including sexual assault — from the chain of command. Those cases are now handled by special trial counsels.

“If there isn’t evidence there to get a conviction, then how is that doing a service to anyone?” Connolly asked.

Stewart is only the second general officer in Air Force to face court-martial on sexual misconduct charges, and the third to be arraigned on military charges in the service’s 77-year history. Maj. Gen. Bill Cooley, the former Air Force Research Laboratory commander, was convicted by a military judge of abusive sexual conduct in April 2022 for forcibly kissing his brother’s wife.

Cooley retired as a colonel in June 2023. An appeal with the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals is pending.

Those core missions — combat readiness, careerlong training, acquisition and future force planning — will eventually fall under the purview of four major organizations, dubbed “institutional commands,” in charge of force-wide planning and policymaking, Air Force officials said in public remarks earlier this month.

The plan aims to streamline the Air Force’s fragmented internal structure, which currently spreads those missions across nine major commands that oversee various types of aircraft and geographic regions, to become more effective and mirror other branches of the armed forces.

The four commands would include:

• Air Combat Command, which would expand its focus on fighter, intelligence and other units to instead manage readiness for the entire service;
• Airman Development Command, which would handle education and training over the course of a service member’s career;
• Air Force Materiel Command, which would run acquisition programs across the force; and
• Integrated Capabilities Command, which would handle long-term planning.

Those core commands would absorb some assets from current Air Force major commands, like Air Mobility Command and Air Force Global Strike Command, to give them the resources they need to manage troops and weapon systems across the force, Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said in a talk at the Air and Space Forces Association June 13 and in a roundtable with reporters at the Pentagon the following day.

In practice, it could look much like the Army, which since 2018 has spread those missions across Army Training and Doctrine Command, Army Forces Command, Army Materiel Command and Army Futures Command.

It’s unclear how the other current major commands will interact with the four overarching organizations, or whether the service will look to add more subordinate commands as well.

The Air Force would also turn each of its service components into standalone organizations that supply forces to higher combatant commands around the globe. Right now, some service components, like Air Forces Cyber, fall under Air Combat Command’s purview, while others like Pacific Air Forces and U.S. Air Forces in Europe, don’t report to a higher Air Force command and have more control over their own planning.

“We adapted to the time that we were in. … But when you think about the things that the environment asked of us, it drove us to be a little bit more diffuse and distributed,” Allvin said. “We didn’t have a clear existential threat like we had in the Cold War.”

The reorganization is the latest piece of a sweeping effort launched in February to realign the Air Force to outpace China and other advanced militaries after decades of fighting in the Middle East, when the Air Force responded piecemeal through siloed commands that focused on a single type of air mission, like bombers or tankers. Now the service wants a more holistic approach to lending those air packages to the joint force.

Some pieces of the plan, including standing up the new Integrated Capabilities Command and turning Air Education and Training Command into the new Airman Development Command, were unveiled by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in February.

Now, additional parts of the puzzle are beginning to emerge.

Air Forces Northern, Air Forces Southern and Air Forces Central — which supply forces to commanders in North and South America and the Middle East — would move out from under Air Combat Command to instead sit on par with the other service components like U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa and Pacific Air Forces.

With less to watch over, ACC would work with “other institutional commands to generate the readiness, the exercises, have the inspections to ensure that we’re mission-ready, not just task-ready,” Allvin said.

“ACC is transitioning into a different type of a command,” he said.

That would include ensuring the Air Force’s combat wings are prepared to fight, including the attack assets that fall under so-called “deployable combat wings” or the wings that will supplement them with airlift and other assets, referred to as “combat generation wings.” They’ll leave behind separate units tasked with keeping Air Force bases running at home during deployments, as well as wings that perform their mission from home station, like intercontinental ballistic missile units.

Lt. Gen. Adrian Spain, the service’s deputy chief of staff for operations, said the Air Force predicts it will be eventually be able to resource 24 deployable combat wings, 16 of which would be active duty and the remainder from the reserves. Those wings are expected to dispatch teams of airmen from the same bases who have already trained together, rather than filling empty jobs overseas as needed from different squadrons.

Their precursor units, referred to as air task forces, are spinning up this summer at six bases across the country in preparation for deployments to the Middle East and the Pacific in October 2025. Another three are slated to replace them overseas in 2026.

ACC will need to work with the other commands to ensure airmen across the force are getting the training they need, beyond the fighter units it has traditionally managed.

“There’s going to be this relationship in building the exercises, building the training mechanism for the whole force that deploys not just what has traditionally been the fighter force,” Allvin said. “That’s where ACC is going to be really accountable and responsible for the readiness of the whole force. That’s a big mission.”

If executed well, the revamp could benefit the service, said Clint Hinote, who worked on the reorganization before retiring from the Air Force as its three-star strategy boss in 2023. He cautioned that it could encounter opposition if the service opts to move the three- and four-star leadership positions that currently govern those commands. But he argues failing to evolve would be a mistake.

“I think they do it wrong by not changing,” Hinote said.

Enlisted airmen in 78 job specialties will be eligible for special duty assignment pay in fiscal year 2025, which starts Oct. 1, the Air Force said in a release. That’s an increase from last year, when the Air Force approved bonuses for 70 critical fields, ranging from an extra $75 to $450 a month.

Space Force guardians working in 22 fields will also be eligible for the bonuses, up from 14 last year.

The service estimated in its fiscal year 2025 budget request, released in March, that around 30,000 troops would receive special duty pay totaling $91.3 million.

In the past, airmen ranging from recruiters and boot camp instructors to pararescuemen, flying crew chiefs and more have reaped special duty pay. Not all troops in a given field may qualify for a bonus, depending on where they work and whether they perform duties that others in their role do not. The Air Force declined to provide Air Force Times with the current list of jobs that qualify for the bonuses in FY25.

Of the 78 Air Force specialties approved to receive the bonuses, 10 are new and 61 were approved at their current rate. Another four will see higher bonuses than in the past, while extra pay for three will decline. One specialty was removed and 18 requests to join the list were denied, the service said.

For the Space Force, nine of last year’s 14 specialties that earned special duty pay will remain unchanged, plus eight new ones.

All specialties approved for the upcoming cycle can expect to receive bonuses through Sept. 30, 2028, with no changes; those coming off the list will be phased out by receiving half of their original bonus through Sept. 30, 2025. Specialties that didn’t make the list for FY25 can reapply for bonuses after two years.

The Air Force and Space Force routinely offer bonuses in some of their most demanding jobs to bolster retention.

In a shift, the Air Force said it would no longer convene an annual board to consider SDAP changes, and instead will do so every four years. The service said the change would bring predictability to airmen and guardians’ personal budgets, as well as its own. It will, however, consider allowing annual reviews as necessary, like when new jobs are added to the workforce.

This year’s board focused on “identifying personnel in extremely demanding positions with unusually challenging responsibilities,” the Air Force said in a news release.

Airmen and guardians can check MyFSS to view the full list of approved specialties for FY25.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart, the Air Force’s former pilot training boss, entered a guilty plea ahead of opening statements in the case, an Air Force spokesperson and a spokesperson for Stewart’s defense team confirmed to Air Force Times.

He initially pleaded not guilty to all charges during a hearing in March. The defense team’s spokesperson declined to answer why Stewart opted to switch his plea on multiple charges.

Stewart maintains he is not guilty of allegedly sexually assaulting an unnamed woman and allegedly taking control of an airplane within 12 hours of consuming alcohol during a work trip to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, in April 2023.

Stewart allegedly penetrated a woman’s vulva with his mouth and penis without her consent on multiple occasions while visiting Altus, a training hub for airmen across the air mobility enterprise, according to a charge sheet obtained by Air Force Times. His attorneys have contended that while he did have sex with the woman, it was consensual.

Stewart was fired from his job leading 19th Air Force, which manages a large swath of airman training programs, in May 2023 amid a misconduct investigation by Air Education and Training Command boss Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson. He was charged in September 2023 with two counts of sexual assault, two counts of dereliction of duty, one count of conduct unbecoming of an officer, and one count of extramarital sexual conduct.

In January, the two-star asked Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to allow him to retire in lieu of facing military trial. That request was denied in February, paving the way for the second time in Air Force history that a general officer has stood trial, as well as the second time that a general has faced court-martial for sexual assault.

The case stalled last week over jury selection. Stewart opted to be tried by a panel of his peers, requiring the service to assemble an eight-person jury comprised of Air Force officers who outrank him or who pinned on a second star before him — limiting the pool of potential jurors to 68 airmen. The Air Force brought 18 jurors in for questioning before seating a panel on Saturday, AETC spokesperson Capt. Scarlett Trujillo said Monday.

Stewart faces a reprimand, fine, dismissal, forfeiture of pay and up to 18 months confinement on the adultery and dereliction of duty charges. If found guilty on all charges, he faces a minimum sentence of dismissal or dishonorable discharge, or up to 66 years in confinement and forfeiture of pay.

Maj. Gen. Bill Cooley, the former Air Force Research Laboratory commander who in April 2022 became the first general officer to face court-martial for sexual misconduct, retired as a colonel in June 2023 after being convicted by a military judge of abusive sexual conduct for forcibly kissing his brother’s wife. An appeal with the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals is pending.