USAF may have to take drastic actions under sequester

USAF may have to take drastic actions under sequester:
If the Congressional sequester goes into effect on 1 March
as is now expected, the US Air Force may be forced to take drastic actions
which will severely impact the readiness of the combat air forces for years to
come.

Those draconian actions include cancelling major large force
exercises like Red Flag and Northern Edge, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley
told an audience at the Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium in
Orlando this past Friday. The majority of the USAF's fighter and bomber wings
will run out money to keep flying by mid-May, Donley adds.

But it might get worse still.

"Fewer flying hours will also lead to cancellation of some
advanced training and weapons instructor courses," Donley says. Additionally,
instructor pilot upgrades and other advanced training would also be frozen--but
the service is trying to preserve the undergraduate pilot training course.

The training stand-downs could take six months to a year to
recover--but to "suboptimal levels," Donley says. Getting pilots back up to the
"desired level" of proficiency would take much, much longer.

The impact of shuttering the USAF's elite Weapons School--even
temporarily--will be nothing short of disastrous, numerous officers are telling
me. The institution serves as repository of knowledge and produces the service's
tactical experts.

"The impact will be generational," one senior officer says.
"Gutting our readiness will happen in a heartbeat, rebuilding it will take a
decade."

As one retired flag officer once told me: "The only thing
more expensive than a first-rate air force is a second-rate one."