Major AMFC restructure,

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio --
Providing greater military capabilities, improving readiness and operating effectively in the current fiscal environment is the purpose of an Air Force Materiel Command-wide restructure announced by Air Force officials today.

AFMC will reduce the number of its centers from 12 to five. This will cut overhead costs and redundant layers of staff and is expected to generate Air Force savings equal to $109 million annually while improving AFMC's overall management and lines of communication.

The restructure is one of many efficiency initiatives across the Air Force. With known cuts of at least $400 billion over the next five years, the Department of Defense has challenged all the services to increase funding for mission functions through efficiency savings in overhead, support and non-mission areas. In response, the Air Force identified $33.3 billion in savings over the next five years, to include savings garnered by reducing civilian workforce numbers. The restructure will allow AFMC to eliminate 1,051 civilian positions in a way that preserves mission capability.

As part of the Nov. 2 Air Force announcement on restructuring the service's civilian workforce, another 1,088 AFMC positions will be reduced as the Air Force streamlines installation support functions.

By reducing overhead costs and restructuring the way it manages the Air Force's research and development, test and evaluation, acquisition and sustainment of weapon systems and nuclear support, AFMC will provide better support to the warfighter and use taxpayer dollars more efficiently.

"We owe it to the warfighter and the American taxpayer," said Gen. Donald Hoffman, AFMC commander. "In these times of tight budgets, our success will depend on a fundamental change in culture across our command. This is an opportunity to do things better and replace a culture of perceived endless money with one of efficiency, savings and restraint."

The restructure will be implemented by Oct. 1, 2012.

AFMC will move away from its traditional, management-staff model, with a center and headquarters staff on each AFMC base. By creating a "lead" center for each of its five mission areas, it will streamline the way it accomplishes its work without harming its ability to perform its mission.

In addition, the restructure better integrates the command workforce. "We'll approach our business in a more integrated fashion rather than thinking separately about research, test, acquisition or sustainment in a center-by-center, base-by-base mindset. The restructure will drive us to more standardized processes," Hoffman said.

Under the new structure, the command's acquisition mission will be led by a single organization, the new Air Force Life Cycle Management Center headquartered at Wright-Patterson AFB. The AFLCMC will consolidate the missions now performed by the Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson, the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass., and the Air Armament Center at Eglin AFB, Fla. These three acquisition workforces will report directly to AFLCMC, eliminating layers of management overhead. Also joining AFLCMC will be the new Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation Directorate, formerly the Air Force Security Assistance Center. It will continue its foreign military sales mission from its Wright-Patterson location.

Program executive officers will remain at their respective bases and continue to report to the Under Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition at the Pentagon. Also, the current Aerospace Sustainment Directorate program offices at Robins AFB, Ga.; Tinker AFB, Okla.; and Hill AFB, Utah, will align to a respective PEO while mission work remains at these locations.

The command's maintenance and supply mission will be led by the new Air Force Sustainment Center to be located at Tinker AFB. The AFSC will consolidate oversight of most missions now performed at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB; the Warner Robins ALC at Robins AFB; and the Ogden ALC at Hill AFB. Like the current acquisition centers, the three ALC headquarters will stand down and their combined workforce will report to the new AFSC. Each location will continue to operate one of the Air Force's three air depots, to be named the Oklahoma City, Warner Robins and Ogden air logistics complexes, respectively.

Maintenance wings at each location will stand down and all subordinate groups will directly report to their respective air logistics complex. The current aerospace sustainment directorates will become the aerospace sustainment divisions reporting to their respective logistics complex.

The Air Force Global Logistics Support Center headquarters at Scott AFB, Ill., responsible for Air Force-wide supply chain management, will stand down.

The 635th Supply Chain Operations Wing at Scott AFB will align to the AFSC. The 448th Supply Chain Management Wing will become the 448th Supply Chain Operations Wing at Tinker and also align to the AFSC. The 591st Supply Chain Management Group at Wright-Patterson, which was a direct report to the AFGLSC, will stand down and become a Logistics Operations Division.

The command's test mission will also be consolidated. The center for test management will be the new Air Force Test Center at Edwards AFB, Calif., which is presently the Air Force Flight Test Center. The 46th Test Wing at Eglin AFB, Fla., and the Arnold Engineering and Development Center at Arnold AFB, Tenn., to be renamed the Arnold Engineering and Development Complex, will report to the AFTC, along with the 412th Test Wing, at Edwards.

The Air Force Research Laboratory, headquartered at Wright-Patterson, will continue in its role as the command's center for science, technology, research and development.

AFMC's nuclear support mission will continue to be led by the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, N.M.

All centers will be led by general officers. The AFLCMC and AFSC commanders will each be a three-star general. AFRL, the AFTC and the AFNWC will each be led by a two-star.

The Air Logistics Complexes at Tinker, Robins and Hill will be led by one-star generals, as will the test wings at Eglin and Edwards. The AFSAC commander at Wright-Patterson will become a director and remain a one-star.

AFMC will use all personnel management options available to mitigate impacts on civilian employees, to include using normal attrition and early retirement and incentive opportunities.

KITCHCOM at NiGHT

BLACK HORIZON KITCHCOMS' new night scanning lighting scheme. Yes - it's amazing - I'm just saying.

767 makes belly landing - everyone walks away.

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PHOTOS: REUTERS




CNN: A Boeing 767 plane made a dramatic emergency landing at Warsaw, Poland's Frederic Chopin International airport after problems with its landing gear, an airport spokeswoman said Tuesday.

All the passengers on the flight, from New Jersey's Newark airport to Warsaw, are safe and uninjured, she told CNN.

The LOT Polish Airlines flight, which had been due to land at 1:35 local time, circled above the airport for an hour before coming down in a belly landing at 2:40, she said.

There were 230 people aboard the flight, Poland's TVN broadcaster said.

Hunt underway for Libyan weapons stores

A month after U.S. officials told ABC News they were moving quickly to secure unguarded weapons in Libya, human rights investigators have found a huge cache of unprotected weapons, including bombs, tank shells and dozens of surface-to-air missiles, in the city of Sirte.

"Anybody want a surface-to-air missile?" asks Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, in a video shot Sunday in near where Moammar Gadhafi and his son Mutassim made their last stand. Though the U.S. is rushing more and more specialists to Libya in a race to find the massive stores of weapons that have gone missing since the start of the Libyan uprising, Bouckaert beat them to Sirte.

Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro told ABC News that there was "obviously" a race to find the weapons before they fall into the hands of terrorists, "and that's why we're deploying people as quickly as we possibly can." Shapiro said the U.S. plans to increase its presence on the ground from 10 teams of weapons specialists, or less than 35 people total, to 50 teams.

"We believe that based on our examination of the numerous sites that thousands of missiles were actually destroyed during the NATO bombing campaign," said Shapiro, "and [that another] thousand missiles have been disabled or damaged."

Libyans alerted by the U.S. reached the Sirte site found by Human Rights Watch on Thursday, according to Shapiro, and moved the missiles there "to a more secure location." Shapiro denied that the Libyans had gone to the site because ABC News planned to report on it, but said the U.S. had "immediately acted" on information provided by Human Rights Watch. He said it would have been difficult to get to Sirte earlier because there was still fighting in the city last week.

In September, Shapiro said the U.S. was "making great progress" in accounting for the Gadhafi regime's missing munitions, but that the U.S. did not have a clear picture of how many missiles it was attempting to track down. Just last week, during a visit to Libya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "I am pleased to announce that we are going to put even more money into helping Libya secure and destroy dangerous stockpiles of weapons."

It would take only one of the shoulder-fired, heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, which have a range of two miles, to bring down a commercial aircraft. On Sunday, Bouckaert found dozens of Russian SA-7 missiles scattered across the ground in Sirte, along with empty crates.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

US flying drones out of Ethiopia

BBC:

The US military has begun flying drone aircraft from a base in Ethiopia, as part of its fight against Islamist militants in neighbouring Somalia.

US officials have confirmed to the BBC that the base, in the southern city of Arba Minch, is now operational.

But they stressed that the remotely-piloted drones were being used only for surveillance, and not for air strikes.

It is part of a growing counter-terrorism presence in the region as the US pursues groups with al-Qaeda links.

The US military has reportedly spent millions of dollars upgrading the remote, civilian airport - from which Reaper drones are now being flown.

The remotely-piloted aircraft can be equipped with missiles and satellite guided bombs.

But officials have told the BBC the drones are flying unarmed because their use is considered sensitive by Ethiopia's government.

Their role is surveillance of the al-Shabab militant group - based in Somalia, and already the focus of drone missions flown from other bases in the region.