[AIR FORCE]- Air Force News Service 04jun97

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Subject: [AIR FORCE]- Air Force News Service 04jun97
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Celebrating the Air Force's 50th Anniversary:
The Golden Legacy, Boundless Future...
Your Nation's Air Force
&
Air Force News Service
This file contains 5 stories
AFNS electronic bulletin board filename: 04jun97
970658. B1-B crew tests new weapon for Air Force
970660. California guard unit earns Spaatz trophy, flying honors
970659. Aircraft supporting SFOR redeploy to United States
970661. A Juicy Story: Customers win in fight
970662. Review recommends small bite from air reserve forces
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970658. B1-B crew tests new weapon for Air Force

ELLSWORTH AIR FORCE BASE, S.D. (AFNS) -- A crew from the U.S. Air Force
Weapons B-1B division here, dropped a new anti-armor cluster bomb at
Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., May 28. The test involved using a single
CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapon against a target array of tanks and support
vehicles on the Eglin test range.

The CBU-97 is the first multiple-kills-per-pass smart anti-armor weapon
in production, said Col. Bill Wise, director of the Area Attack Systems
Program Office at Eglin.

"It represents a significant capability for our combat forces," said the
colonel.

Although the CBU-97 was designed to interface with a wide variety of U.S.
and NATO aircraft, this marked the first time one was dropped from a
B1-B.

The crew will pass on first-hand knowledge from the drop to student
instructors who will, in turn, pass the information on to the students at
their home stations, said Capt. David Been, weapons flight commander with
Ellsworth's weapons school B1-B division.

Been said the global power capability of the B1-B makes it an attractive
platform for new weapons like the B1-B.

"If you want to kill armor, I can't think of a better way to do it than
with a B1-B," said Gen. Dick Hawley, commander of Air Combat Command.

Wise believes the sensor fuzed weapon test was a success.

"We've demonstrated live SFW drops from both fighters and bombers," said
Wise. "Now the U.S. Air Force can project this capability anywhere in
the world." & & & 970660. California guard unit earns Spaatz trophy,
flying honors

CHANNEL ISLANDS AIR NATIONAL GUARD STATION, Calif. (AFNS) -- The
California Air National Guard 146th Airlift Wing has been awarded the
Carl Spaatz Trophy and has been named the 1996 Air National Guard
Outstanding Flying Unit.

The Spaatz trophy, named after the first chief of staff of the Air Force
Gen. Carl Spaatz, is awarded annually to the best Air National Guard unit
in the United States by the National Guard Association of the United
States. Criteria for the award include exercises and deployments,
inspections and assessments, mission accomplishment, safety, community
involvement and overall excellence.

To merit the Spaatz trophy, the 146th earned numerous awards at guard-,
reserve-, major command- and Air Force-level. The wing has also recently
supported deployments to, or is currently supporting operations in,
Bosnia, Hungary, Germany, Honduras, the Republic of Chile and the Persian
Gulf.

The Channel Islands-based Air Guard unit won the Spaatz Trophy twice
previously in its fifty-year history.

The Outstanding Flying Unit honors were awarded by the Air Force
Association. Last year the 146th commemorated 250,000 hours of
accident-free flying, spanning a 30 year period -- one of the best
flying safety records in the C-130 community.

Both awards will be presented during formal ceremonies in September. The
AFA Outstanding Flying Unit will be presented in Washington, D.C., and
the Spaatz Trophy will be presented in Albuquerque, N.M. & & & 970659.
Aircraft supporting SFOR redeploy to United States

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- During the next few weeks, the United States will
begin returning four aviation units that have supported the Stabilization
Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina to their home stations in the continental
United States.

The 155th Air Refueling Wing will return to Lincoln, Neb., and the 121st
Air Refueling Wing to Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Columbus,
Ohio. The Air National Guard detachment from the 110th Fighter Wing will
return to W. K. Kellog Airport, Battle Creek, Mich. The Marine,
all-weather Fighter Attack Squadron 224 will return to Beaufort Marine
Corps Air Station, S.C.

The first two units are leaving Istres Air Base, France, while the
second two units are leaving Aviano AB, Italy.

The significance of these actions, according to Defense Department
officials, is that it represents the end of the current cycle of
rotations of fighter aircraft and aerial refueling aircraft from the
continental United States to the U.S. European Command to support SFOR.

Aircraft currently stationed in EUCOM, both land-based and afloat,
according to the officials, will continue the mission and provide a high
level of force protection for soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines on
the ground in the former Yugoslavia. & & & 970661. A Juicy Story:
Customers win in fight by Bonnie J. Powell DeCA Public Affairs

FORT LEE, Va. (AFNS) -- Belly wash, aseptics, isotonics. Sounds like
Saturday night at the fights, but it's just some of the lingo involved
with putting juice on commissary shelves.

"Belly wash" is a nickname for juices that have plenty of water, sugar
and pretty colors -- but not much else. Aseptics are those convenient
single-serving juice packages. Isotonics are "sport" drinks.

Be it belly wash or isotonics, do customers really think about how they
came to be on commissary shelves?

"Probably not," says Chuck Prutch, juice category manager for the
Defense Commissary Agency, "unless they can't find the one they're
looking for!"

It's up to the buyers at DeCA to make sure the most popular products get
enough shelf space at stores.

If you've noticed changes recently in the juice section, it's probably
because of a major event that took place months ago at DeCA -- a "reset."
Be it candy, cans or juice, resets involve a complete review of specific
categories of products and where they go on the shelves. As a result,
slow-selling products might be pulled, hot new products may appear.

Customers want their favorite products on the shelves, and so do the
manufacturers. But neither commissaries nor commercial grocery stores
have room for everything. That's where the "Saturday night fights" come
in, says Prutch. Manufacturers lobby heavily for shelf space, but DeCA
has to walk a fine line between offering product variety and running out
of items the majority of customers buy.

Behind-the-scenes planning, months in advance, is the key, says Prutch.
Although categories are reviewed constantly, major resets are usually
done only once every few years. That's when manufacturers and
distributors come together to argue their case for more shelf space and
prime locations. It's a big deal.

The process has also become a science, says Prutch. Manufacturers come
to the resets armed with sales figures, research and computer-generated
"planograms," blueprints that depict how the shelves should be stocked.

Planograms also ensure most stores have roughly the same products in
roughly the same locations, even though lack of store uniformity can be a
stumbling block.

Actual store shelves are set up in the warehouse in preparation for the
reset.

"We start out with a blank slate," says Prutch. The blank slate gets
filled rapidly as manufacturers and brokers all begin stocking the
various juices. Then negotiations begin.

"The whole point is to debate the allocation of shelf space here (in the
warehouse), and implement the results in the stores," says Prutch. "It's
much better if we arrive at a consensus. That heads off problems later."

Commissary officers try to avoid inconveniencing customers by scheduling
resets on a closed day or at the end of the business day, but there are
some unavoidable exceptions. The entire McChord Air Force Base (Wash.)
Commissary was reset in March.

"We were closed for two days," says commissary officer Lucas Markos. "We
try to be responsive and tell customers it will make shopping easier, but
for some that isn't going to work. We had one fellow who told us we
messed up his entire shopping list when we did the store reset.
Unfortunately, his list was computerized according to store layout." & &
& 970662. Review recommends small bite from air reserve forces

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The Quadrennial Defense Review report issued May 21
by the Department of Defense did much to validate the importance of Air
Force Reserve Command and its reserve component partner, the Air National
Guard.

The QDR looked at every element of the U.S. military, including how it
fights, how it supports its forces, how it buys equipment and what forces
the nation needs in the years ahead. The objectives of the review were
to seek ways to continue modernizing U.S. forces, sustain their
readiness, preserve the forces needed to perform missions and ensure
resources are available to achieve those objectives.

As the most integrated total force service on a day-to-day basis
according to the review, the Air Force relies heavily on reservists to
fly a large percentage of its mobility and support missions, in peacetime
and in war. The Reserve fighter force has also been used extensively to
enforce no-fly zones over Bosnia and Iraq.

"We are a part of the Air Force long-range plan and will continue as a
viable part of the Air Force after QDR initiatives are implemented," said
Maj. Gen. Robert A. McIntosh, AFRC commander. "My first post-QDR
prediction is simply more of the same. Becoming a major command has
allowed us to better transition into the future because we are now an
understood organization entity and better postured to positively
influence the change process."

McIntosh said the Reserve has been in transition for the past two years,
taking on new missions and modifying its force structure to remain
"productive members of the total force well into the next century." These
new missions include flying airborne warning and control system aircraft,
augmenting Air Education and Training Command with undergraduate pilot
training instructors, and taking on more space operations duties.

In its recommendation, the QDR report looked at the Department of
Defense cutting its force structure by 60,000 active-duty personnel,
55,000 reserve people and 80,000 civilians. Of that number, the Air
Force would eliminate 26,900 active-force and 18,300 civilian positions,
but only 700 reserve slots.

Officials said the Air Force will turn to the Guard and Reserve even more
to ease the personnel tempo of active forces. They said the Air Force
has already improved the scheduling of air reserve component rotations in
support of contingency operations and will seek ways to more effectively
use them in the future. (Courtesy of AFRC News Service)

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