It was six years ago that USAF set up a new introductory flight training program, utilizing civilian flight schools to indoctrinate and screen those who wanted to be USAF pilots. (See our article “The Pre-Pilots Fly Again” from June 1999.) Now, USAF plans to recast IFT into a new shorter program taught at a centralized location—to be named—that will more resemble USAF-type training. The current IFT runs 50 hours, but Air Force Education and Training Command chopped that in half. The current civilian schools conducting IFT will use the new 25-hour AETC syllabus to screen pilot candidates—at least until the new program—dubbed initial flight screening—starts up in October 2006.
A Defense Department team is on the ground in Ukraine assessing what the country needs to protect itself from air, naval, electronic, and cyber warfare threats as Russian troops gather on multiple fronts, a senior Ukrainian defense official told Air Force Magazine, describing an emphasis on what assistance can be…