Capt. Ronnie J. Synakowski, a computer engineer from the Air Force Technical Applications Center at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., and Pamela L. Wright, the chief of plans and programs for the 498th Nuclear Systems Wing at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., beat out six three-person teams from across the DOD. They did so by applying techniques taught in Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century in a simulated battle to solve a complex business problem.
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Capt. Ronnie J. Synakowski, a computer engineer from the Air Force Technical Applications Center at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., and Pamela L. Wright, the chief of plans and programs for the 498th Nuclear Systems Wing at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., beat out six three-person teams from across the DOD. They did so by applying techniques taught in Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century in a simulated battle to solve a complex business problem.
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RDAF Maj. Michael Rosenkrands, the detachment commander, said they do a lot of their training outside of Denmark because of the nation’s size, and for the opportunity to gain experience from their allies.

Denmark has 16,629 square miles of land, which is about half the size of South Carolina.
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Second Lt. Justin Mason, an Air Force Academy engineering graduate, is leading the project from the uniform office, part of Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The uniform office handles everything from designing prototypes to overseeing field tests.

Mason is soliciting feedback from airmen of all ranks as well as information on innovations from the textile industry and efforts by the other services.

“We’re trying to cover all uniforms,” he said.

The uniform office’s top civilian, Richard Keefer, sees the plan both as a tool to help prioritize projects and as a framework for resolving ongoing uniform issues. He stressed the plan will not replace the Air Force Uniform Board at Air Force headquarters, which along with the chief of staff has the final say on any proposed changes.

Among ongoing issues, the more vexing are keeping up with fabric innovations and tracking down fabric replacements.

Keefer gave as examples improved cold-weather fabrics and fabric replacements for the blue dress uniform.

The uniform office is always on the lookout for fabrics that are lightweight but warm and for new materials for the blue dress uniform in case the current ones are discontinued.

Right now, Keefer said, the uniform office’s top priority is tweaks — not overhauls.

Design of a stain-resistant green leather boot is underway after airmen at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., gave high marks to prototypes they tested last summer. Airmen who frequently get dirty on the job need the boots because their green suede ones absorb grime and are nearly impossible to clean.

The improved airman battle uniform shirt/blouse arrives in stores next year. Soon after the ABU became widely available in 2006, airmen demanded a shirt better suited for warm climates. As an interim solution, the Air Force allowed airmen to cut out the shirt’s interior pockets. Some airmen took to wearing unauthorized cotton versions.

No redesign of the ABU itself is in the works, and there are no plans to change the uniform’s digital tiger-stripe pattern, Keefer said.

In August, the Army is switching camouflage patterns for soldiers in Afghanistan after tests showed a new one called MultiCam gave better cover than the service’s standard digital pattern. MultiCam already is worn by many special operations troops, including Air Force combat weather, pararescue and special tactics airmen who must wear the same uniform as the soldiers they work with.

The Air Force is paying attention to the Army changes, though. To improve coordination with the uniform office’s Army counterparts, Keefer said, the office is assigning a full-time position to the Army gear and uniform development center in Maryland.

To get airmen’s input for the plan, the uniform office is holding town hall meetings and collecting comments online.

Several town hall meetings were held the week of March 21 in Florida at Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field, said Mason, the project leader.

Meetings earlier this year at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., attracted as many as 100 airmen each, he said.

Airmen who cannot attend a town hall session can make their suggestions by logging on to the Air Force Portal, www.my.af.mil, and going to the Air Force Idea Program site, Keefer said. Many of the suggestions will be sent to the Air Force Uniform Board for consideration.

What you want to wear

Airmen gave a rundown of their uniform priorities to airforcetimes.com. A sampling:

The only priority I have is to vastly develop a standard issue “summer-weight” ABU. I am currently in Afghanistan, and a “winter weight” ABU in Afghanistan during summer months is unbearable.

— Kimberly Shannon

A beret that is still Air Force and not Army would be nice to be able to wear. Since the ABUs took away unit pride by making unit insignia unauthorized, the beret with unit flashes would be nice since they would only be worn at a home station base anyway.

— Alexander S. Ubiadas Jr.

All of my uniform priorities have to do with combat ops.

Fire resistance.

Slant pockets, particularly on the tunic, that I can reach while in armor.

Sleeve and leg pockets suitable for tourniquets and other medium-sized items.

A camouflage pattern not chosen by fashion-designer wannabes.

A collar that protects the neck from flash fires and chafing from armor.

Slip-in knee and elbow pads.

Weight reduction with a summer-weight option. Right now, I can fit two CWU-27/P flight suits in the same volume as one pair of ABU, for similar weight.

— Mike Pietrucha

Deployed hash marks should be authorized on the left arm of the blues for every six months spent in a combat zone. That reflects time spent in country, not just that you were there to qualify for the medal. It was part of our uniforms in the early years of the Air Force; why did we navigate away from it?

— Staff Sgt. Aaron C. Evenson

Slanted pockets. Enough with the “traditional” look of the uniform. We are the Air Force, we are meant to change and adapt with technology, why can’t we do it with our uniforms?

— Joshua Campbell

Change the color of the flight suit or go back to only black boots. The sage green boot looks terrible with the old green flight suit.

— Waylon Mitchell

It is my firm belief that the United States military as a whole should be wearing a single version of a battle dress uniform. It seems absurd to have three variations (Army, Air Force and Marine Corps) when we are all in the fight together.

— Paul Sanchez

Bottom line: Don’t change things just for the sake of changing things. We need a better ABU, so go with something we know works, like the Marine battle uniform. Keep it simple and you’ll be able to buy more F-35s in the long run.

— Capt. John Blase

Why not make a peacoat like the Navy for airmen to wear with their blues? It gets cold at some bases and we don’t have an adequate coat to wear with them.

— Staff Sergeant

We really need an ABU field jacket. Everyone you talk to who owns an old BDU field jacket absolutely loves it. They are warm, comfortable and more affordable than the APECS jacket. Highly recommend the uniform board push for the design and fielding of an ABU field jacket to give airmen an alternative to the APECS.

— Col. Richard Schwing

Now, compare the Air Force physical training test to the Marine Corps Combat Fitness Test: Sprint 880 yards, a half-mile. Lift a 30-pound ammo can from your chest over your head as many times as you can in two minutes. And, finally, navigate a 300-yard obstacle course that includes crawling, carrying a “casualty” and throwing a grenade.

All done decked out in your utility uniform and boots.

For seven airmen at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., who took the CFT at the invitation of the leathernecks assigned with them to the 33rd Fighter Wing, there is no comparison to the Air Force’s PT test. The CFT is no walk in the park, but it can be done, the airmen say. They passed, after all.

“I could barely feel my legs when I was done,” said Staff Sgt. Simon Delacruz, assigned to the 96th Security Forces Squadron. “The cans are the killers.”

The airmen’s respectable performance is encouraging a small but growing movement inside the Air Force that wants the service to institute its own CFT.

Perhaps the most vocal advocates are airmen who have served on the battlefield, such as joint terminal attack controllers. Their calls haven’t gone unheard — three airmen have developed CFT programs on their own, and the Air Force exercise physiologist responsible for the new PT scoring standards that go into effect July 1 is looking at how the service could incorporate a combat fitness element.

Even airmen who aren’t wild about a CFT are embracing the training. Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., just opened its fourth center for CrossFit, a strength and conditioning methodology used widely by other services and law enforcement agencies. At least seven other bases are also offering CrossFit classes.

Semper Fi fit

The Marines unveiled their CFT nearly 18 months ago on orders from the commandant himself. Gen. James Conway gave the directive after hearing from deployed Marines about the need for a different measure of fitness.

Today, Marines must take two tests — the CFT once a year and the PT test twice a year. On Jan. 1, airmen began taking their PT test twice a year as well as having the test administered by civilian fitness experts.

Air Force officials expect to see the PT failure rate jump from about 2 percent servicewide to 15 percent or even higher when test scorers begin using the tougher standards and minimum scores. About 10 percent of Marines failed the CFT during the phase-in period, which ended last March. So far, according to Corps officials, only 5 percent of Marines have achieved the perfect score — 300 points.

The Air Force is closely monitoring the Marines’ performance while it continues its research. Exercise physiologist Neil Baumgartner, who overhauled the Air Force’s PT test in 2004 and in 2009, wants to customize the CFT for various career fields. For example, a pilot and a personnelist would take different versions of the test.

“Doing that takes time,” Baumgartner said. “Right now the idea is still conceptual. It’s not set in stone.” He added that the earliest that airmen could see a CFT is three to five years.

The airmen at Eglin impressed the Marines with their dry run.

“They did very well,” said Marine Sgt. Maj. Bonnie Skinner with Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, who proposed the joint effort. “If the Air Force [had the test], seeing at least the airmen that joined with us, I don’t see them having a problem whatsoever.”

Marines — for the most part — like the CFT because it adds variety to their fitness program and helps prepare them for deployments, Skinner said.

“You are going to do a lot more things in a combat situation that are a lot closer to the Combat Fitness Test than what you are going to do for the normal PT test,” she said. “It’s positive reinforcement.”

A tug of war

The momentum for the Air Force to add a combat fitness test has come mostly from airmen returning from deployments.

“Being an old Desert Storm airman and being on five deployments — three to Saudi Arabia and two to Iraq — not once did a situation come up where you had to run a mile and a half. And no one could care less if you had a 32-inch waist,” Tech. Sgt. James Geiss wrote in an e-mail to Air Force Times, referring to the run and waist measurement components of the current PT test.

“When those rocket/mortar attacks hit the base, what mattered was that you get your butt to safety,” wrote Geiss, who is assigned to McChord Air Force Base, Wash.

Staff Sgt. Jermain Morrow prepares security forces airmen for deployment as an instructor with the 96th Ground Combat Training Squadron at Eglin and wants to see the Air Force adopt a CFT.

“It shows you what type of condition you are in to head overseas,” Morrow said.

Like Morrow, Master Sgt. Jerry Wright with the 96th Logistical Readiness Squadron took the test and thinks airmen would benefit from taking it. He knows, however, that not everyone would give the CFT a thumbs-up.

“You have a pretty big divide between the administrative Air Force and the flight line,” Wright said. “The administrative side isn’t going to be so receptive. The flight-line side that deploys where you have to take cover or you are getting shelled will like it.”

Master Sgt. Kevin Palumbo, with the 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., is a CFT detractor.

“It burns me that people who can shut down and go to the gym three times a week are the ones saying it would be great to do more testing,” Palumba said. “I wish to God I had the people and skill levels to support having an eight- to nine-hour workday and being able to include going to the gym during that period.”

For Maj. Shannon Smith, the discussion shouldn’t be an either/or debate about the CFT and the PT test.

“I agree combat fitness is important. However, it is not the only reason we should take a periodic fitness test,” said Smith, commander of the 790th Missile Security Forces Squadron at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.

“First, our health care is paid for by American taxpayers, not just during our time on active duty, but for many years beyond our time in uniform. … If we make a concerted effort to eat right and remain physically fit while serving in uniform, the less problems we’ll have in the future, thus becoming good stewards of our tax dollars. Second, it is our duty and responsibility to present and maintain a professional military image to those same taxpayers.”

A trio of studies

Three airmen did their own research on combat fitness.

Capt. Thomas Worden started thinking about combat readiness on a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan. Too many times, Worden said, he found many airmen who could not even run for cover and he wondered whether the Air Force’s fitness test was part of the reason.

When Worden returned in April 2007, the civil engineer went off to the Air Force Institute of Technology, the service’s graduate school of engineering and management, where he set out to come up with a test to accurately measure an airman’s combat fitness.

Worden’s discovery: the half-mile run, 30-pound dumbbell lift and push-ups do the best job of determining an airman’s combat fitness.

Though Worden believes more research is needed, he also is convinced the Air Force — like the Marine Corps — must include combat fitness in its fitness program.

The PT test “is good at measuring general health and if an airman is going to rack up medical bills in the future,” he said. “But it’s not very good at measuring if you will be good at combat.”

In his “USAF Concept for Functional Fitness,” F-22 pilot and certified personal trainer Maj. Jeremy Gordon outlines a six-event CFT: an 800-meter run, a 50-repetition press of a 30-pound object, a 400-meter run, a 50-pound object carried 100 feet, 50 full sit-ups and five pull-ups.

Airmen’s scores would be scaled for age and gender and be based on how fast they could complete the course.

Gordon concedes his test would be “significantly more challenging” than the PT test but would force airmen to focus on “stamina, flexibility, strength, power, speed, coordination, balance, accuracy and agility.”

The PT test, according to Gordon, focuses too much on both the waist measurement and the 1.5-mile run, and neglects “total fitness.” It doesn’t prepare airmen for combat or their day-to-day jobs, he said.

“Rarely does an airman’s job call for long-duration exertions [like a 1.5-mile run] without any weight or external objects to move,” the report states.

An Air Force doctor has also weighed in with a fitness program, although he doesn’t call it combat fitness.

Lt. Col. Daniel Kulund, chief of the medical staff at the 319th Medical Group at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., has designed the Virtual Military Obstacle Course. Airmen do the circuit-training program with a 10-pound plastic pipe — called a “fighting stick” — meant to simulate the size, weight and balance of an M16.

Kulund came up with the idea after observing how military obstacle courses require “maximum effort, and oftentimes an awkward position, so you could get hurt,” he said. “It’s really not a practical way of regular physical training.”

Kulund, who at 68 is the service’s oldest active-duty airman, has lobbied Air Force leaders to adopt his program servicewide. Former Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper showed interest; the chiefs of staff since Jumper have been less enthusiastic.

Like Gordon, Kulund thinks the Air Force should place a higher priority on total fitness and preparing airmen for the physical challenges of both their jobs and deployments.

“Air Force physical training is like the cross-country team with some push-ups and sit-ups put in,” he said.

Related reading

— At Luke, it’s gospel to preach combat fitness

The airmen graduated Feb. 12 from the course at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, along with six prior-service airmen who had decided to switch career fields. The class was the fifth to complete the course, but the first to include airmen straight from basic training.

Among them was Airman 1st Class Scott Mitchell, 19, of the Air National Guard, who signed up for the course at the same time he signed his service contract. “It’s such a new technology, and to be on the forefront of something so new and exciting is great,” he said.

The new graduates will join a growing number of enlisted airmen in the Air Force’s new 1U0X1 sensor operator career field created last year. The first class — all prior-service airmen — graduated in August.

Demand for unmanned aircraft has steadily grown in recent years, and Air Force operators are flying 600 percent more missions now than five years ago. This year, the Air Force for the first time will buy more remotely piloted aircraft than manned aircraft and will train more unmanned aerial vehicle operators than fighter and bomber pilots combined.

The unmanned aircraft are “definitely the growth industry in the Air Force right now,” said Lt. Col. Bryan Kunkle, director of operations for the 12th Operations Group, Detachment 1 at Randolph.

The Air Force plans to train 341 students by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2010, and another 374 in fiscal 2011, said Tech. Sgt. Michael Arroyo, a Basic Sensor Operator Course instructor and supervisor. The four-week course, with 168 academic hours, includes training in geospatial reference systems, sensors and communication, and full motion video.

“This is the future and every one of them [students] wants to be here,” he said. “The amount of combat air patrol commanders are calling for, it grows every time.”

The job security in the unmanned aircraft field has helped convince some airmen to jump careers. For others, the new career field puts them closer to the action than they were before.

Staff Sgt. Bryan Buchorn, 31, spent 10 years as an aerospace propulsion airman. But on Feb. 12, he became a sensor operator.

“I was looking for a job that was less support and more on the front lines,” he said. “I relished the thought of being able to possibly save lives and have more immediate gratification.”

The course has left him well-prepared for this new phase of his Air Force career, Buchorn said.

“In the 10 years I’ve been in the military, I think I’ve learned more about the operational side in this class,” he said. “This is what I plan on doing for the rest of my career, and to be at the start of this career field, you can’t possibly have more ownership of this career field.”

WHAT IT TAKES

Interested in becoming a sensor operator?

New graduates of basic military training who want to enter this career field attend a 14-day prerequisite course at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, before attending the Basic Sensor Operator Course at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas.

Graduates of BSOC go on to the four-week Remotely-Piloted Aircraft Fundamentals Course, also at Randolph, before attending the Joint Firepower Course at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., and the three-month MQ-1 Formal Training Unit at Creech Air Force Base, Nev.

Airmen already in the service can switch career fields to become sensor operators. First-term airmen must have 23 months of retainability after they complete their training, while all others must have 36 months of retainability. In addition, staff and technical sergeants must have no more than 16 years of service, and master sergeants no more than 18 years in uniform.