Air Forces Africa needs airmen to grow mission

Whether you speak Swahili fluently or simply wrote a college paper on Ugandan history, the Air Force wants to find you.

U.S. Air Forces Africa, Africa Command’s aviation arm, is looking for airmen with African language skills or cultural knowledge who can help out with its exercises and missions.

“When we pick some of our airmen to take assignments with the 17th Air Force, well, obviously we are focusing in on their backgrounds and those that do have foreign language expertise and specifically those on the African continent is obviously a plus,” said Brig. Gen. Michael W. Callan, vice commander of 17th Air Force and U.S. Air Forces Africa, which is based at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

Callan talked about the outreach effort, scheduled to start in June, during a wide-ranging interview last month at the Pentagon.

Also next month, Africa Command’s first Air and Space Operations Center will reach full operational capability, he said. It stood up and declared initial operational capability a year ago.

The center, run by 17th Air Force, will eventually provide an air picture for all of Africa.

“We are hoping to build not just air space control, and I mean command and control of air space. Move it out of [Joint Task Force Horn of Africa] and expand it to the rest of the continent,” Callan said.

In the nearly two years since 17th Air Force stood up, the command has seen its number of airmen grow from 120 to about 300, he said. Many of the airmen came from U.S. Air Forces Europe, the command previously responsible for African missions.

U.S. Air Forces Africa still does not have aircraft assigned to it but performed 30 missions in its first year and is on track to more than triple that number by its second anniversary. Among the nations served: Morocco, Uganda, Mali and Botswana.

Many of the missions involved opening a runway or surveying an airfield, and much of the work was done by airmen who make up what are known as contingency response groups, or CRGs.

“We are responsible for many of the airfields to remain current and surveyed,” Callan said. “CRG airmen give us much of that capability.”

U.S. Air Forces Africa is looking to align itself with a CRG, he said.

Callan predicted that the light mobility and light attack aircraft that the Air Force intends to buy as trainers could be assigned to U.S. Air Forces Africa. Plans call for 30 planes to be purchased in the next two years; the service has not chosen the specific models.

Airmen with 17th Air Force offer advice to African military leaders but are careful to not tell them what aircraft they need, he said.

“The light attack or light mobility platforms would be one answer, but certainly not the only answer to some of their needs, to give them examples of how someone would run training and how to professionalize the air business,” Callan said.