The fulfillment of Air Force Global Strike Command is on “an aggressive timeline with a lot of work to be done,” the command’s first commander, Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, said Tuesday in Bossier City, La., reports the Shreveport Times. His headquarters at Barksdale AFB, La., is gaining “half a dozen new faces” every day, Klotz said. The headquarters will comprise about 900 personnel by fall 2010, and, in the interim, the new command will take over the service’s ICBM force—in December—followed by the nuclear-capable bomber force—in February 2010. AFGSC will comprise 20th Air Force, responsible for three Minuteman ICBM wings, and 8th Air Force, which will shed its reconnaissance assets and retain two B-52H wings and the service’s only B-2 wing. Klotz said last week that his measure of success is when all his airmen realize the importance of their tasks.
Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, celebrated the beddown of its full complement of F-35s with a ceremony just weeks after the base received the last of its 54 fighters. The arrival of those F-35s in mid-April gave Eielson the Air Force’s second fully-equipped, combat-coded F-35 wing, comprising two fighter squadrons.…