Air Force readiness down 17% since 2001

Reserve C-130 crews to be asked to volunteer amid air transport strain


Our military branches are in shambles, but as long as the Empire State Building is still standing, the RWers feel safe and consider Bush to be on the job! Screwy logic, but this is what Joe Lieberman believes!

http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=44659

Air Force readiness is down 17 percent since 2001, according to Gen. Ronald Keys, Commander of the Air Combat Command.

Personnel and airframes are both feeling the strain of high operations tempos provoked by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Keys told reporters Monday at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington at a press roundtable with nine other Air Force generals during a Combat Air Forces/Mobility Air Forces Commanders’ Conference.

...

The troop increase for Iraq announced by President Bush in January put an additional strain on air transport capabilities, McNabb said, although the Air Force is still determining how many transport crews it will ultimately have to contribute to the so-called “surge” effort.

“Mobility could be large” numbers of Air Force personnel, McNabb said. “We’re not sure.”

...

The Air Force is preparing to call for C-130 Reserve air crews to volunteer for deployments, said Lt. Gen. John Bradley, Chief of Air Force Reserve.

The service has to ask for volunteers instead of mobilizing reservists outright because all of the Air Force’s C-130 Reserve crews reached their two-year mobilization limit in the fall of 2006, Bradley said.