AFOTEC Det. 5 to receive 20 additional billets

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Julius Delos Reyes
  • 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center Detachment 5 here will receive 20 additional billets as part of the AFOTEC-wide manpower realignment. 

Twelve officer, five enlisted and three civilian positions will be reassigned to Detachment 5 as part of the change. 

"I believe it is a huge benefit to our mission," said Col. Dave Cohen, AFOTEC Detachment 5 commander. "One of the changes from AFOTEC is to take the headquarters, make it more of a standardization evaluation function and take more of the actual test mechanism and infrastructure down to the detachments." 

The Detachment 5's mission is to ensure warfighters and logisticians have the right tools for the job, permitting them to effectively and safely accomplish their mission. Specifically, they perform operational tests of all non-fighter aircraft and systems -- unmanned, mobility and bomber aircraft systems. It also has operating locations at Hurlburt Field, Fla, where they perform special operations testing and Marrietta, Ga., where they are working on C-5 Galaxy upgrades. 

"In these days of minimal resources and manpower, we have to make sure we are doing the best with what we have," Colonel Cohen said. "That was the driver behind these changes to make sure that we did have the right people at the right place doing the job." 

Previously, the detachment's responsibility involved just performing operation tests on various programs. Now as part of the manpower realignment, the detachment will receive programs from its early stages, as requirements are being written, all the way to the milestones, full reproduction and fielding the system. 

"We now have a bigger part of both ends of that process," Colonel Cohen said. "We are more involved in the early stage as well as the latter part." 

Personnel capabilities and expertise will be aligned or realigned to support existing and projected operational test and evaluation requirements. In addition, the reorganization will afford the detachment to accomplish its mission faster. 

"Being able to do the test and evaluation, and provide that information to the decision makers in a more rapid cycle will be a huge benefit to what it is that we do at Edwards," Colonel Cohen said. 

However, filling the additional billets won't be seen right away but the reorganization itself is immediate, said Lt. Col. Benjamin Hobday, AFOTEC Detachment 5 director of Operations. 

"It gives us the right people here to support a lot of new tests that are coming because we are gaining new programs as some responsibilities are moving away from Kirtland (Air Force Base, N.M.) to Edwards," Colonel Hobday said. "Giving us these billets is going to help us stand up the right test teams to do these tests." 

(Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center contributed to this article)