Air Combat Command

I had a colleague who was out in Colorado and did some stuff with the Space Force recently, but it seems like an AFA, there were more briefings, AFA, I believe, reporter briefings on space than anything else.

I'm there looking for like, oh, where's the good old Air Combat Command? I'm like, the last day at life.

three o'clock in the afternoon.

Like there were literally like six briefings a day on space.

We've also been talking for the last... you know, five years about ACE, Agile Combat Employment, as if this is really going to solve all the problems.

And I heard for the first time this week, I think it was one of Dave's panels, General Spain at Air Combat Command say, hey, ACE is not something that we want to do because we want to do it.

We're going to do ACE if we have to do it, because that's only going to create additional problems.

I'm going to create a fuel problem.

It's also a really good message as we s- as we, um, talk to Congress and their role in funding this, because you're not gonna get ready and you're not gonna fund, or you're not gonna get ready, and you're not gonna get modern, and you're not gonna take care of airmen and families if you don't have the budget to support that.

So let me, um, pull on that, uh, string because one of the, uh, your priorities when you were at Air Combat Command, and indeed when you were at PACAF and everywhere else, was the importance of having standardization.

Um, and that, um...

And, and, you know, over a period of time, the force has been moving towards this, right? It was playing pickup ball.

All of that takes standards to snap it together.

So that's at the unit level.

But, but, uh, standards from, from the aspect of individual airmen, I also, uh, tried to attack when I was air combat command and I continue as the chief.

And, and that's because we, uh, we count on one another.

If legal conviction is a software vulnerability, then low-altitude defense is a hardware shortcoming because the White Sands Missile Range is not an isolated case.

On December 6, 2023, at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, this base is the home of the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter and also the headquarters of the Air Combat Command.

The F-22 that shot down the CCP's high-altitude reconnaissance balloon in early 2023 came from here.

About 45 minutes to an hour after sunset that day, drones appeared in the sky.

So something very interesting is missing from the official, I guess you would call it the single ship episode.

demo or the single the demo schedule from air combat command which of course is the command for um certain said demo teams anyway we're going to talk about that here yeah

it's the air combat aerial events office okay actually there you go thank you for clarifying that brother

Before we start, though, we have some breaking news.

So I might as well just put this graphic up.

And there are some websites, at least for air shows, that are still carrying... um the f-35 demo on there um or the demonstration but uh i know that there was one recently i believe it was oh gosh um oh actually it's on the graphic so i'm just going to put the graphic up so we can we can kind of follow along

and not only that but like if you really want to know the up-to-date the most up-to-date information you go to the air combat command schedule and It was last updated on 8 September, 26.

So it's the most up-to-date, exactly.

I just want to ask everybody in the chat a question really fast.

What's missing from this schedule? This is the Air Combat Command 2026 ACC single ship demo

schedule.

Zoom in a little bit on that, brother.

And I also got to fly.

And then after I retired from the Air Force of 20 years, then I went into serving at Air Combat Command at NORAD NORTHCOMP.

which are also big commands in the United States here that basically try to protect the world, if you will, from bad guys by just protecting the United States and also going out and protecting and serving also to protect and to help in floods and hurricanes and the such.

And then after that, I retired up into the mountains of Colorado, which is another state here in the United States, and live here with my wife and two big Colorado mountain dogs.

But we still had this problem about the canopy.

At the time, the ops group commander was a guy named Mike Hijack Hostage, who ended up being a commander of Air Combat Command.

But he was the ops group commander.

And I called him.

Before we get any further, we want to note that all opinions expressed here are ours or our guests and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Department of Air Force, the Department of Defense or War, or the United States government.

While Corey is unable to join us today, today I am joined by a distinguished visitor to our podcast and to our school, and that is General Adrian L. Spain, who is the Commander of Air Combat Command.

As Commander, he is responsible for organizing, training, equipping, and maintaining combat-ready air, cyberspace, and electromagnetic spectrum forces for rapid deployment and employment while ensuring strategic air defense forces are ready to meet the challenges of peacetime air sovereignty and wartime defense.

General Spain entered the Air Force in 1994 through the ROTC program, graduating from Villanova University.

Sure.

I'm General Adrian Spain.

I'm the commander of Air Combat Command.

I've been in place a little over one year now at this point.

And then an Air Force demo team rolls in and reminds you that the physics of flight are more flexible than you thought.

The F-22 Raptor is flown in air show demos by the Air Combat Command F-22 demonstration team based out of Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

One pilot, one jet, a carefully choreographed routine designed to show the airplane doing things that should not be possible.

Here's what you need to know about the Raptor if you're coming to it fresh.

If you want to see the AvWeb picture that started this segment, it is at avweb.com.

The image speaks for itself.

Sources for today's segment include AvWeb Air Force reporting on the F-22 program and publicly available Air Combat Command documentation on the F-22 demonstration team.

More at RadioHanger.com. I'm Tower.