Three newly established centers under Air Education and Training Command achieved Initial Operational Capability, marking a significant milestone in the command's efforts to reoptimize the Department of the Air Force for Great Power Competition.
The U.S. Air Force Accessions Center and the Enterprise Learning Engineering Center of Excellence achieved IOC on Dec. 1. The Flying Training CoE achieved IOC on Oct. 1. Additionally, five Technical Training CoEs are projected to achieve IOC this winter.
"Initial operations at these centers directly support the Secretary of the Air Force's directive for AETC to reshape and redesignate as a reoptimized Airman Development Command," said Lt. Gen. Brian S. Robinson, AETC commander. "We will continue to 'follow through' as we adapt ADC's ability to find, recruit, train, educate and develop resilient, Mission Ready Airmen who will thrive in complex, contested environments - anywhere, anytime."
The centers all currently fall under AETC, tentatively scheduled to be redesignated as ADC in 2025. The centers will be responsible for executing the following missions:
The AFAC, provisionally stood up Oct. 1, merged the Jeanne M. Holm Center for Officer Accessions and Citizen Development at Maxwell AFB, Ala., with the Air Force Recruiting Service based at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. The AFAC is projected to reach full operational capability by Oct. 1, 2025.
The ELE CoE, located at headquarters AETC at JBSA-Randolph, is designed to accelerate learning engineering and improve retention for students, faculty and staffs. Learning engineering is a human-centered, interdisciplinary, evidence and competency-based endeavor. Its purpose is to optimize and accelerate learning, improve retention, integrate new technology, broadly consider constraints and apply scientific thinking to generating learning investments and architectures.
The Numbered Air Forces' CoEs serve as primary focal points for early integration and coordination with Air Force Materiel Command, Air Combat Command, the service component commands and the Integrated Capabilities Command regarding sustainment, operational feedback and future capabilities development, ensuring initial skills training and leader development incorporates the competencies every Airman needs for success in GPC.
On any given day, Second Air Force is responsible for more than 5,000 basic military trainees, 16,000 technical training students in more than 265 Air Force specialty codes, and hundreds of international students.
Second Air Force is working to establish five Technical Training CoEs supporting groups of AFSCs under the following areas: Institutional, Information Warfare, Logistics, Command and Control and Combat Power.
As part of the command's technical training transformation effort, courses are transitioning toward a competency-based model, providing more flexibility at lower levels to change individual tasks that are being trained than there is under the legacy construct. If the desired competency remains the same, the specific tasks that Airmen need to do it can change much more rapidly than the old approach.
Additionally, Second Air Force is integrating competency-based training tied to Agile Combat Employment operations across individual AFSCs with related duty requirements, allowing the command to jumpstart the development of the mission-ready Airmen needed for GPC.
The establishment of the Nineteenth Air Force Flying Training CoE represents a natural evolution of prior transformation efforts. The CoE is focused on developing and maintaining existing flying training syllabi and courseware, and the development, review and refining of flying training competencies.
This will be done while leveraging and expanding upon the innovative work conducted over the past six years through various programs such as Pilot Training Next, Air Mobility Fundamentals, Fighter Bomber Fundamentals and Pilot Training Transformation initiatives.
Nineteenth Air Force is responsible for more than 45% of the U.S. Air Force's annual flying hour program and directs aircrew training courses cumulating in over 24,000 graduates annually. With 18 total force wings across 35 locations, the training encompasses undergraduate and graduate fixed and rotary wing pilots, remotely piloted aircraft pilots, combat systems officers, air battle managers, weapons directors and graduate career enlisted aviators, which provides fully qualified aircrew personnel to the warfighting commands.
Moving into 2025, the headquarters AETC Command Integration Center will provide major command-level command-and-control, situational awareness and decision information to swiftly adjust production requirements when needed to succeed in the GPC environment. The CIC's projected IOC is March 31, 2025.
Functionally, the CIC will provide ADC a means to communicate across the command to achieve common understanding of the operational environment and situation, receive and breakout higher headquarters orders, task subordinate commands using military type orders, integrate the command's production and assess production operations.
DAF senior leaders outlined changes to AETC in February at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado, as part of the service's 24 key decisions designed to meet the challenges of a changing threat environment, keep the force competitive and enact urgent change. These decisions are broadly grouped into four categories - Develop People, Generate Readiness, Project Power and Develop Capabilities.
"AETC is fully committed to implementing the DAF-directed changes to reoptimize AETC into a redesignated ADC," said Chief Master Sgt. Chad W. Bickley, AETC command chief. "Our new centers will expedite the Air Force's ability to '"Develop People"' for Great Power Competition. We aren't making change just for the sake of making change. This is about systematically developing our human weapons system - our Airmen, for high-end combat operations. If we are called to defend our nation, our Airmen will be ready, and we will win!"
ADC is expected to become the service's enterprise-wide integrator for Airman development, training and education as part of the Department of the Air Force's efforts to reoptimize for Great Power Competition.
