General Bishop takes command of 3rd AF

***image1***Editor’s note: The KA recently spoke with Lt. Gen. Robert “Rod” Bishop, commander, Air Command Europe and Vice Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, to discuss his assumption of command of the 3rd Air Force in a ceremony taking place 10 a.m. today in Ramstein’s Hangar Five. General Bishop spoke about his goals for the 3rd Air Force, their mission, and the transfer of the operational headquarters from the 16th AF to the 3rd.

What is the mission of the 3rd Air Force?
The mission of 3rd Air Force is to conduct day-to-day operations for USAFE and European Command and to organize, train and equip Airmen for the functions that they could be called upon to accomplish around the world.
In those roles we’re essentially taking what the 16th AF has done for the last year and a half and expanding its mission by quite a bit. We’ll be busy planning and exercising to be able to respond to a conflict or a humanitarian mission in this part of the world.

And one of the additional things that will also be on our plate is for the HQ to plan and train in order to be able to lead a joint task force.

As the 3rd AF commander, what will your role entail?
I see the commander with one foot squarely in day-to-day operations, one foot squarely in preparing the staff to be part of a joint task force headquarters and lead a JTF or JFACC staff from 3rd AF. I see one foot squarely in training. We can translate that into one word: readiness.

I also see one foot engaged in theater security cooperation, helping General (Tom) Hobbins with strengthening and building existing partnerships and nurturing new ones with Air Forces in our 92-country area of operations.
You’ve noticed that I’ve ticked off four feet and I only have two (laughs).

That’s why we have a couple of deputies: I’ve asked (Maj.) Gen. (Paul) Fletcher to emphasize the readiness piece and the day-to-day work of providing oversight to the wings. And Brig. Gen. (William) Uhle, since he is located here with our AFFOR staff and Air Operations Center, to oversee day-to-day operations.

With those gentlemen helping me out, I can also focus a good part of my time on ensuring our people are being taken care of in all areas – from quality of life to promotion opportunities.

I might mention, though, that the 3rd AF staff is not manned for all of these functions and we will have some great teamwork going with the MAJCOM (USAFE) staff.

Going forward, what are your goals for the 3rd Air Force?
If I had an overarching goal, it would be to be the best numbered Air Force in the Air Force.

The pieces of the puzzle that we need to make that a reality are that we have to be the most ready, the most qualified and the best at the missions that we perform for our nation. There will be a strong emphasis on taking care of people, taking the lead here from General Hobbins, and making sure all of our folks have opportunities for professional development and that they are progressing to their maximum potential.

Along with taking care of people is making sure they’re operating safely. When people are back on home station, there is nothing that we are doing day-to-day that necessitates taking risks to the point of putting one’s life in danger.

We also want to assist where we can in this new structure that we’re putting together as an Air Force. The major command is focused mostly up toward the combatant command and toward NATO.

We want to help in the MAJCOM’s theater security cooperation efforts to develop partners that can assist us collectively in the war on terrorism.

Another goal is making sure that from an Air Force perspective any of the day-to-day operations that we’re running in this part of the world for our combatant command and MAJCOM go as flawlessly as possible. As a subset of that I would include that 3rd AF HQ is prepared to lead and fight or operate as a JTF or a JFACC.

One last note — we all need to do our part under Air Force Smart Ops 21 to eliminate waste so we can save our Air Force money to recapitalize our aging aircraft fleet in particular – which is approaching an average age of 25 years.

Are joint task forces something you see becoming more important in the future?
Joint task forces have become the organizational convention for combatant commanders. When Combatant Commands are faced with a crisis, contingency or an operation, they call upon JTFs to produce specific effects, or conduct operational-level specific missions.

What is a little new over the last couple of years is that the U.S. Air Force is saying we are capable as well to lead joint task forces. Makes sense – we are big time into joint operations as a military force. In fact if you look at the U.S. Air Force in total I believe greater than 50 percent of our budget goes to supporting the joint force. For example, the huge proportion of our airlift mission is conducted for the Army and the Marine Corps; we don’t do much close air support for Air Force forces; and our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities is targeted to support ground, and to a lesser extent, naval forces as well. So, we’re pretty well joint by nature of our mission.

How does the 3rd AF HQ and 3rd AF fit into the USAFE spectrum?
In light of pending manpower cuts Air Force wide, we needed to have a headquarters that was doing more than just training and exercising and then perhaps conducting the next warfight, contingency or humanitarian operation.

3rd AF headquarters inherits those responsibilities from 16th AF HQ, but is also now taking on a lot of the day-to-day responsibility for organizing, training and equipping USAFE’s wings and Airmen – the readiness piece. You won’t hear many people talk about 3rd AF warfighting headquarters but I do hope you hear a lot of people talk about 3rd AF operational headquarters for USAFE and for EUCOM.

As for the men and women in the wings and Air Force bases throughout Europe – they have traded their Air Command Europe chain of command for one that goes through 3rd AF. That trade should be pretty much transparent.

What does the name change – from the 16th to the 3rd Air Force – mean?
The simplest way of saying it is that all the forces assigned to the 16th AF are now being assigned to 3rd AF.