The Air Force is shaking up its Officer Training School as it looks to prepare a new generation of airmen for an era of increasingly complex, fast-paced military operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OTS aims to grow operationally skilled, emotionally intelligent officers under a curriculum that is more flexible and realistic than in the past, officials told Air Force Times in an interview Tuesday. Its new approach may also allow the Air Force to pump out more officers in a crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The school welcomed its first class of trainees into the new program at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe can confidently say that this is the most historic transformation within OTS history since we\u2019ve been around as an institution,\u201d said Col. Keolani Bailey, the school\u2019s commandant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since launching in its current form in 1959, OTS now trains around 3,000 new Air Force and Space Force officers each year. It\u2019s one of three programs that prepares college graduates for military service, along with the Air Force Academy in Colorado and Reserve Officer Training Corps units at campuses around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shifts in the geopolitical landscape, changes to how the Air Force deploys around the globe and new insights into student learning have spurred the school\u2019s leadership to rethink how it will shape the next generation of officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After decades at war with terror groups across the Middle East and Southwest Asia, the United States is now changing its focus to vie with China and Russia for influence around the globe and bolster its allies on each continent. The Air Force, in turn, is enacting an ambitious slate of reforms to better respond to conflicts that flare up in the physical and digital realms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we knew coming into \u2018great power competition\u2019 was, the way that we \u2026 train obviously had to be different,\u201d OTS Vice Commandant Col. Derrick Iwanenko said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new program \u2014 known as \u201cOTS Victory\u201d \u2014 will give trainees more experience with mock deployments, in simulated operations centers and using new technology, to begin immersing them in the daily work of air and space operations at home and abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trainees will move from learning the basic building blocks of military life, like keeping a dorm clean and how to march with precision, to more advanced lessons in mission command, wargaming, artificial intelligence and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each day will begin with a presentation on how those lessons apply to real-world situations, to better understand why they matter, Bailey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then students will head to the classroom for more traditional instruction, before hands-on practice in what they\u2019ve learned. Classes will end each day with time to reflect on what they\u2019ve learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trainees will tackle each lesson in a way that more closely reflects what they\u2019ll do in an operational squadron, Iwanenko said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now students will have to plan briefings and set objectives for a day\u2019s events, to more accurately understand what went well and what needs more work to achieve those goals, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\u2019ll have access to more wargames and a multidomain operations lab, where software will prompt them to plan, brief and execute missions in response to simulated combat scenarios. And they\u2019ll practice expeditionary combat skills in an imitation deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Classes will also be tested on how well they react to 25 surprise situations over the course of the program, ranging from a security breach at a base to a force-on-force fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo one else is doing that level of training when it comes to mission command,\u201d Iwanenko said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of moving five classes of more than 500 trainees through the pipeline each year, OTS will now bring in a new class of around 150 students every two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once a class arrives at Maxwell, they\u2019ll progress through the 60-day OTS curriculum in five stages that each last about two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That offers the Air Force the flexibility to hold back struggling students until they\u2019re ready for the next module. In the past, trainees were sent home if they couldn\u2019t keep up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new approach can have benefits for instructors, too. Breaking the curriculum into five sections lets teachers specialize in one portion of the coursework, rather than covering the entire program, Iwanenko said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That, as well as a 14-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio, may curb burnout among OTS instructors, and ensure students are fully grasping the material, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teachers will also get 10 weeks of non-instructional time each year for leave, professional development and class prep, the Air Force said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Restructuring the schedule can make OTS more responsive to the Air Force\u2019s needs if war breaks out. The school could bring in as many as 175 trainees per class, and up to 26 classes per year, to surge new officers to the field in an emergency, the service added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re the shortest commissioning source within the department,\u201d Bailey said, noting that it takes new officers up to four years to graduate from USAFA and ROTC. \u201cWe have that ability, that responsibility, to be that shock absorber.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Above all, the school will focus on cultivating good troops as well as good people, Bailey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s the first time that OTS will purposefully try to instill a slate of core Air Force values, from accountability to digital literacy, alongside its typical focus on test-taking and basic military skills. Airmen will be judged on how well they embody those traits in job performance reviews throughout their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An OTS graduate should be a \u201cwarrior-minded\u201d leader who \u201clives with honor, lifts others and elevates the performance of their teams,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commandant hopes the reforms will turn OTS into a premier leadership institution for the profession of arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur intent is to create such a transformative leadership development and an impactful experience that \u2026 they are beating down the door to try to get in,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The school welcomed its first class of trainees into the new program at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":71755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":67,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["your-military","news","home"],"primary_category":"your-military"}}},"categories":[101,24,16,26,67],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3392],"class_list":["post-39085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-news","category-newsletters","category-your-air-force"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"FXI2ZFQ3WRDTRHC66TMIOMVABY","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-air-force\/2023\/10\/11\/heres-how-training-will-change-for-the-air-forces-newest-officers\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n