Community Spotlight: AFRC/A5

  • Published
  • By Maj. Jolone Botter-Ortiona and Capt. Kristin Mack
  • AFRC Public Affairs
A5R and A5XW have the combined task of war planning and modernizing the fleet through a blend of putting the right people in the right places and making sure they have the resources to do their jobs once they are there.

A5XW is the war planning center of Air Force Reserve Command.
According to Col. Kurt D Jones, A5X and A8X director, their mission is to take the requirements for the area of operations and Air Force Reserve Command and create unit type codes that match the requirements and the manning.

It is their responsibility to create the plans that send people out the door in support of combatant commanders. When a deployment lands on someone’s desk, they have done all the legwork to make that happen.

“AFRC operates out on a two-year planning document,” said Tim Rose, A5XW division chief. “A5XW is doing it’s best to make realistic plans based on limited resources and to identify risks and mitigate them as best as possible.”

“We have to ask ourselves the question, ‘are we putting the resources, our people, in the right places to satisfy the requirements?’” said Rose.
The planning process begins in November when all the deployment taskings come down from Headquarters Air Force for the following year. The functional area managers from across Reserve Command get together to see what can be supported. Afterwards, A5X goes back the Air Force and offers to “buy” slots.

Sometimes during the process, reservists are spread out all over the globe. However, the goal is to keep units together.

“Our main goal is always to manage the best teaming opportunity that we can find, enabling units to fight together the way they train together,” said Jones. “It creates an esprit de corps from having shared experience and that also translates back to their home unit. It is more rewarding for them to go together.”

In addition to meeting requirements and engineering a positive deployment experience by allowing units to deploy together. A5XW has the big picture view and helps establish that all assets aren’t tasked to deploy simultaneously. Units need to be able to function at home and abroad.

The sustained capability schedule provides a timeline of when units are in the bucket to deploy. It gives stability and predictability to units and let’s them know when they are vulnerable to mobilization.

“AFRC plan keeps operations tempo to one, six month tour, every 48 months in order to give reservists more time to plan,” said Jones. “With a 48 month battle rhythm, no one is surprised.”

In addition to filling requirements, A5XW has to have a good idea of what the actual manning looks like at the units.

“While a unit might look good on paper with manpower and participation, it might not be utilized to the best extent,” said Rose. “If those requirements aren’t being filled, there needs to be a shift in resources.”

By analyzing the gaps they are better able to make a strategic plan. That in turn helps the reservists at their units by allowing them to focus on their duties and responsibilities instead of being concerned with coordinating resource allocation.

While A5XW is planning where people are deploying too, A5R’s primary mission is to upgrade and modernize Air Force legacy aircraft in order to keep them on par with the active duty force, and the threat environment.

“This is not a small task when many of the Reserve’s aircraft are more than 30 years old,” said Maj. Mark D. Reed, Deputy, A5R Requirements.

Also, the upgrades have to be accomplished with a limited amount of funding. According to Reed, that funding has averaged about 85 million per year for the past seven years.

The process begins with the combat planning council, which is a warfighter driven, bottoms up approach to identifying requirements. The priorities are integrated into a requirement list and that list faces a corporate structure process of key stakeholders and leadership in order to identify the priorities that need to be funded. It goes through a lengthy approval process, ultimately ending up before Congress. The House and Defense committees meet and determine how much funding they will allocate.

The money comes from The National Guard and Reserves Equipment Appropriation, established in 1981 as a congressionally directed program to provide funding for the reserve components to enhance readiness.

“The money is spent on upgrades to defensive systems, communications, precision targeting and systems that provide mission enhancement,” said Reed. “It can be used to acquire new systems or to rebuild, overhaul, or refurbish existing programs and products.”

One of the challenges Reed identified with the funding is they never know when the money will flow to them or how much they will get. It could come through in a window anywhere between April and July.
While A5R doesn’t have control over when the money arrives, they prepare through planning and strategizing. The division is poised and ready with multiple spend plans in place.

One of the challenges is that the acquisitions process can be quite lengthy, anywhere from 18 to 24 months.

“Fortunately, System Program Offices understand that NGREA is three-year funding and try to construct contracts with options allowing the AFRs flexibility in the use of their funds,” said Reed.

This enables A5R to choose the best option based on the budget they are provided.

In the end, Reed said the most rewarding part of the process is the knowledge that our reservists are getting the best possible training and resources.