What happens then – and does anyone ever come through a second time, say, after a command change or realignment?
All those weapons officers who graduate twice a year – about 95 per class – go back to be weapons officers in their major commands.
Once you are a weapons officer, you’re a weapons officer for life, so I can’t think of a situation where someone would come through here twice. Basically, we want to get captains, at about the six- to eight-year point in their careers, we can send back as weapons officers and instructors, with enough time for them to ply that trade as instructors of instructors and battlespace integration officers. We could take a major, but they soon would become colonels doing other things.
A C-17 Globemaster III from McChord Air Force Base, Wash. drops equipment used for a rapid runway repair during a Mobility Air Forces Exercise conducted by the U.S. Air Force Weapons School, May 23, 2012, at the Nevada Test and Training Range. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. William P.Coleman
Although you report directly to Air Combat Command (ACC), what relationship does the center have with Air Force Space Command and the 24th Air Force (AFCYBER) with regard to your space and cyberspace efforts?
The chief of staff ordered there would be one Air Force Warfare Center, responsible to everyone, so I work for the commander of every major command. For ACC, in the sense that is where the money and tasking flow from and where I go for staff support.
About 10 or 12 years ago, we stood up the space weapons school, and in January this year, the cyber weapons instructor school. In cyber, the first class was for instructors putting themselves through the curriculum so they could begin training in July. So I’m also responsible to the AFCYBER commander and to the Air Force Space commander for everything related to training for space, as well as to the commanders of the Air Force Reserve and Air Guard Bureau, to the commander of AFSOC and so on.
That actually works very well and we have great, open relationships we continue to build. For example, the Space Innovation and Development Center at Schriever Air Force Base [Colo.] is transitioning to us – not physically moving – as part of the integration of all the parts of air, space, and cyber into one center.
How much of the center’s operational testing, tactics development, and advanced training is conducted at Nellis and how much at its other locations around CONUS?
About 55 to 60 percent of advanced training and tactics development is conducted here. Operational testing depends on the subject. The T&E [test and evaluation] group is here, as are the preponderance of the test aircraft. But the 53rd Wing at Eglin [Fla.] is a weapons evaluation group and the 83rd Weapons [Evaluation] Group at Tyndall [Fla.] does live missile shots over the ocean. Then there are the low-density, high-demand assets – everything to do with the B-1 is at Dyess [Texas], Global Hawk at Beale [Calif.], B-2 at Whiteman, C-17 at McGuire [N.J.], B-52 at Barksdale [La.], etc. So that part is about 60 to 40, here.
Does the center operate any OCONUS sites?
No.
Including the ones you just mentioned, then, you have five wings at Nellis?
No, that changed in June 2011, when we stood down the 98th Range Wing, which is now a named activity – the Nevada Test and Training Range [NTTR]. The people and missions haven’t changed, but personnel-wise it fell below the threshold to be a wing. So instead of five wings, we now have four wings and a named activity.
What percentage of training involves officers versus noncommissioned officers (NCOs)?
About 93 percent of our trainees are officers, the remainder enlisted, probably 80 to 90 percent of those NCOs.
How large is the center’s aggressor force, where is it located, and how are its members trained and utilized?
Under the 57th Wing here is an adversary tactics group. There is one aggressor squadron under PACAF [Pacific Air Forces] in Alaska – very similar to what we do, but they don’t belong to us.