AFMC Command News

Ceremony marks activation of AFMC Intelligence Squadron

  • Published
  • By Capt. Jolanta Morrison
  • Air Force Materiel Command Intelligence Division
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  In a facility rich in Air Force history, an activation ceremony signaled the birth of Air Force Materiel Command's Intelligence Squadron.

The event took place Sept. 13 in the National Museum of the United States Air Force and featured the uncasing of the squadron flag.

The AFMC Intelligence Squadron, or AFMC/IS, is a direct reporting unit to the AFMC Director of Intelligence. The squadron will provide AFMC with a core, analytical capability to ensure intelligence support is adequate and available for new Air Force systems - such as the F-22 Raptor and the upcoming F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter -- throughout the systems' entire lifecycle.

Gen. Bruce Carlson, AFMC commander, presided over the ceremony.

"The Intelligence Squadron is blazing a new way ahead ... providing complex and critical advanced intelligence support to the F-22, F-35, and the Air Force's growing inventory of unmanned aerial systems," said General Carlson.

The general added that the hard work consistently put forth in the intelligence arena is vital "not only to our mission as 'One Materiel Command', but it is an absolute must in safeguarding and strengthening our national security."

The squadron's cost analysis flight will pursue cost estimating solutions to ensure intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance-specific resource requirements are identified as early as possible for a program. Officials say these efforts will, in turn, reduce ISR-related risks late in a capability's development, a stage where it is more difficult to change the budget.

The operations flight will provide the Air Force's only consolidated acquisitions intelligence training for all AFMC intelligence professionals and any acquisition professional dealing with ISR issues.

The new squadron commander, Lt. Col. Matt Kell, charged the squadron' members to continue to "aggressively engage our acquisition programs and their user commands -- like Air Combat Command and Air Mobility Command -- to ensure the right intelligence support is available at the right time and place for our new aerospace and cyberspace capabilities."