Relating Ranges and Airspace to Air Combat Command Mission and Training Requirements

Ranges and airspace for Air Force training purposes are scarce resources for which the Air Force must present a rigorously defensible claim. To help the Air Force articulate its aggregate needs, assess the adequacy of its existing assets, and justify new or existing assets, RAND and the Air Combat Command developed an analytic structure containing a joint mission framework, training requirements, infrastructure requirements, and the current infrastructure. RAND also constructed a relational database that can be used to support a variety of staff processes and analyses. The study team found that centralized repositories of information on ranges and airspace are limited, with little provision for updating the data. The range and airspace database partially fills this gap and is a powerful tool for range and airspace managers and a potential tool for other aircrew training resource managers. But it must be maintained and updated, which will require a trained administrator and an understanding of update procedures by managers in the field.