Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
September 15, 2007
Under a rearrangement of forces, the Air Force will be assigning up to 200 active duty officers and enlisted personnel to run a full-time air squadron at the Homestead Air Reserve Base in the next two years.
Homestead, home to 26 F-16s -- some recently returned from Iraq -- is now the domain of reservists who mostly get in their flight hours on the weekends. Many of the reserve pilots assigned there today actually work full time for commercial airlines.
Under the new scheme, the Air Force will assign full-time Air Force men and women to the base to fly the 26 F-16 warplanes as well.
Gen. T. Michael Moseley , the Air Force chief of staff, disclosed the so-called ''force integration efforts'' on Thursday at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, which will establish a reserve-active duty partnership similar to the one planned for Homestead. Fort Worth will get one, too.
At Homestead, Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Davis, the spokesman, said arrangements are still being made but the transition should be complete by September 2009.
Just about a month ago, part of the Homestead reserve wing returned from a three-month assignment to Iraq. They had deployed there with eight of the 26 F-16s.
''It is critical that the Air Force have a strong presence in South Florida since our state serves as a gateway to the Americas,'' Florida Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart wrote in a news release Friday. ``I know that our region will benefit immensely from this addition.''
September 15, 2007
Under a rearrangement of forces, the Air Force will be assigning up to 200 active duty officers and enlisted personnel to run a full-time air squadron at the Homestead Air Reserve Base in the next two years.
Homestead, home to 26 F-16s -- some recently returned from Iraq -- is now the domain of reservists who mostly get in their flight hours on the weekends. Many of the reserve pilots assigned there today actually work full time for commercial airlines.
Under the new scheme, the Air Force will assign full-time Air Force men and women to the base to fly the 26 F-16 warplanes as well.
Gen. T. Michael Moseley , the Air Force chief of staff, disclosed the so-called ''force integration efforts'' on Thursday at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, which will establish a reserve-active duty partnership similar to the one planned for Homestead. Fort Worth will get one, too.
At Homestead, Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Davis, the spokesman, said arrangements are still being made but the transition should be complete by September 2009.
Just about a month ago, part of the Homestead reserve wing returned from a three-month assignment to Iraq. They had deployed there with eight of the 26 F-16s.
''It is critical that the Air Force have a strong presence in South Florida since our state serves as a gateway to the Americas,'' Florida Republican Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart wrote in a news release Friday. ``I know that our region will benefit immensely from this addition.''