BALTIMORE \u2014 The Air Force’s new top general wants to take a second look at the squadron, improve its development of joint leaders and enhance the way the service does command and control, he said in a Sunday speech outlining his top priorities.
Although Goldfein did not specify how the Air Force could develop such a system, his idea sounds similar to the “Data to Decision” experimentation effort outlined in the Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan. In that campaign, which began this spring, the service will evaluate whether it can use existing technology to put data from various sensors into a cloud-like architecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a recent interview with Defense News, Brig. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who led the Air Superiority 2030 enterprise capability collaboration team, characterized the desired output from the Data to Decision effort in language very close to that of Goldfein: an iPhone-like collection of applications that would offer users synthesized information and intelligence on a variety of topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Revitalizing Squadrons<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Air Force also will reevaluate the makeup of its fundamental unit, the squadron, paving the way for future changes, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is not an attempt to throw money and manpower at the existing model. This is actually a step back to say: ‘What does the new model need to look like in the 21st century, given the missions that we have’,” Goldfein said. “I think it looks different. I think there\u2019s probably an active duty, Guard, reserve mix, perhaps at the squadron level that we ought to look at. I think there\u2019s a full-time\/part-time mix that we ought to look at in the squadron level.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Civilians or contractors may also need to take on a different or larger role in the new squadron, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Before taking on the role of chief, Goldfein asked his father \u2014 a \u00a0former Air Force pilot and Vietnam War veteran \u2014 \u00a0how long it took to plan, brief, execute and debrief a typical mission during the 1960s. The answer was about five hours. Today, the average F-16 block 50 mission will take thrice that long \u2014 about 15 hours\u00a0\u2014\u00a0even though the makeup of the squadron is largely the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much of that is due to the huge leaps of technology and increased mission demands, coupled with declining manpower in the Air Force overall, Goldfein said. Up until the era when the F-15 and F-16 were introduced, Air Force pilots experienced mission growth only when new hardware was introduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We actually could keep up with that, because hardware didn\u2019t come to the field too quickly,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once weapon systems and sensors could be upgraded via software, however, missions grew almost exponentially, he said. That also triggered a growth in security and classification, which restricted mission planning to a smaller number of high-ranking officials, further lengthening the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Developing Joint Leaders<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the Air Force needs to improve both how it develops joint leaders and how it teams with other services, in part because any fight against one of the military\u2019s top five threats \u2014 Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and violent extremist groups \u2014 would likely contain an air element, Goldfein said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We\u2019re going to have to make sure that we\u2019re strengthening its development of joint leaders so that we can step in, and not only support, but lead any of those operations,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goldfein indicated that the service may consider whether to begin joint training of its officers earlier in their career. Currently, airmen spend about a decade in the tactical level, during which time they may not gain a lot of experience cooperating with the other services, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What is a developmental path that ensures that, early in our careers, we are exposed to and start thinking about the business of joint planning and campaign design?” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The new Air Force Chief of Staff outlined his top three priorities at the National Guard Association of the United States Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28236,"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":7,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3384],"class_list":["post-18502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"W73GGSZRTZBYBBFAEDOALMUEWM","arc_canonical_url":"\/air\/2016\/09\/11\/new-air-force-chief-to-review-squadron-makeup-command-and-control\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n