Most of Air Force Special Operations Command’s weapon systems are not single mission aircraft, Lt. Gen. Donald Wurster, AFSOC commander, said Tuesday at AFA’s Air & Space Conference in Washington. AC-130 gunships and MC-130s support ground operations in various ways and even conduct ISR for special operations forces. With that in mind, command officials know that any solutions to weapons system problems generated by the continuing high operations tempo will need to be adaptable and scalable to the needs of air commandos in a variety of scenarios. Where appropriate, he said, they are pursuing selective recapitalization and modernizing newer platforms. Wurster noted that the first MC-130J, destined to replace Vietnam War-era MC-130Es and MC-130Ps, is currently in production. “Ultimately we will have J model C-130s throughout the fleet,” Wurster said, noting that would simplify maintenance and decrease the complexity of training pipelines for different airframes.
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…