- Roger 4807 approaching runway seven bravo. - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new information operations technical training school. - So in our business of national security, where our job is to fly, fight and win, we'd better be masters at this game of innovation. - Air Force basing military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - This is the Developing Mach-21 Airmen podcast. - Hey everybody welcome in to episode number nine today of Developing Mach-21 Airmen. Thanks for the subscribe, stream or download however you might be listening in today. And if you have some extra time we certainly would appreciate some stars or even a review of the podcast letting us know how we're doing bringing you timely and relevant info across the recruit, train and educate spectrum. My name is Dan Hawkins from the Air Education and Training Command Public Affairs Office and your host for this professional development podcast dedicated to bringing total force, Big A airmen insight, tips, tricks and lessons learned from the recruiting, training and education field. For this second straight podcast we've farmed out it for action. And this time it's with the 82nd Training Wing at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls where James Rumfelt and the team from the PA office at Sheppard go in-depth with a pair of avionics fundamentals course flight chiefs to talk about how they have reimagined what the training environment looks like when it comes to breaking long held industrial age paradigms. One of the biggest focus areas for Lieutenant General Steve Kwast our commander here in AETC has been breaking those long held training paradigms that the Air Force has really used for a long time. The first one is the fact that the Air Force controls learning and flipping that paradigm and giving control of learning to the students is now the goal here in AETC. The second paradigm that we need to break is that time is the constant. So a course has typically had a length associated with it whether it's 30 days, three months or a year. Now we're trying to shift that focus to an airman's competency level so if they display the competency to pass a course in a shorter amount of time that we give them credit for that and move on with the next step in their career. The final paradigm is the fact that we just teach airmen how to do a job and now the goal is to teach airmen in a holistic manner in the context of a mission how to do that job providing a more ready war fighter to combatant commanders as they move to their permanent assignments. So James Rumfelt from the Sheppard PA office sat down with two senior NCO's from the 365th Training Squadron, Master Sergeant Brion Kennedy, the Avionics Fundamentals Flight Chief and Master Sergeant James Churchill the Heavy Avionics Flight Chief to discuss how the squadron and schoolhouses have been able to bust those long held training paradigms, centered around the case study of a New Mexico Air National Guard Airman who was able to graduate from the Avionics Fundamentals and Electronic Warfare course in less than a month and just for perspective to do both of those courses would be over five months with the old time standards. So they really busted that paradigm so they're gonna talk about all the process that led up and how they executed that particular student's training experience. So it's pretty incredible to see how our technical training teams across all of our AETC learning centers are working to foster the command's vision of inspiring and developing airmen on a daily basis. So no more delay, let's settle in have some fun episode nine of Developing Mach-21 Airmen starts right now. - Good morning gentleman. My name is James Rumfelt with the 82nd Training Wing Public Affairs and I'm here with Master Sergeant Churchill and Master Sergeant Kennedy. You guys wanna take a few minutes here and just tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Let's start with Master Sergeant Churchill, just where you're from, how long you been in the Air Force that kinda thing. - My name is Master Sergeant James Churchill. Been in the Air Force for about 13 years. I am currently the Flight Chief for the Heavy Avionics Flight in the 365th TRS. Little bit about me, I'm from Long Beach, California originally. Didn't live there for too long, don't consider that home to be honest because I spent most of my life in around Greensboro, North Carolina which is home for me. - My name is Master Sergeant Brion Thomas Kennedy. I was born in St. Thomas Virgin Islands. I grew up in New York and Long Island. Served my country for 20 years in the Air Force as a avionics technician. I've worked F-15's, C, D's and E's and I've worked A10 A model aircraft and now I'm here at Sheppard as a flight chief for the AVF flight section. - Okay awesome. Thanks gentleman. We're here to talk a little bit today about kind of the exceptional student you guys had go through go through some courses that you both teach. Airman Sandoval. So I wanna start with Master Sergeant Kennedy. As far as avionics fundamentals, what are some of the different concepts airmen learn in that basic course and then like follow-on courses and then if we can talk a little bit about like the timeframe it takes for a typical airman to finish that course. - So the avionics fundamental course is a really important course. Every single avionics technician, no matter what model aircraft they go to, goes through this course. It's what's used to build the very basic information that they need to be successful. We really talk about electronics, how circuits work, how signals flow and this type of information is really needed as technicians go from that first level of being someone who's just holding a wrench helping to remove a part and when they start getting into the troubleshooting portion of the career. So that's the part we do. We give them that basic knowledge, make sure they know how electricity works, how the different circuits work and then just important concepts that they're gonna need later on in life to troubleshoot as the technician. - Gotcha. So I'm sure you have some interesting stories over the years but like have you had like the extreme, so you've got this guy like Airman Sandoval but have you had like the extreme other end of the spectrum there where you have somebody come in who's literally never seen. - Yeah we have that a lot. We get people out of high shool. They just did well on the ASVAB but they don't really feel comfortable. They don't feel like they have a lot of knowledge on electricity and signals and circuits other than they turn computers on and they turn their TV on but they never really thought about everything that goes into when you hit that switch and the signals that are transferring and how everything's turning on. And they're really nervous a lot of them when they first come here. And it's a little bit of a shock because you're getting a college course but you're getting it very condensed. So we're giving them a lot of information in a really short amount of time. - Sergeant Kennedy is actually describing me coming through - Oh really? - as an airman, yes sir. I surprised myself on the ASVAB, my electronics score was the highest and I knew nothing about avionics or electricity and back then it was called electronics principles but very much the same course, very similar. And it's, it can be intimidating learning all this stuff and now you're talking about on airplanes. It's not just troubleshooting lights in your house or your home computer. It's multi-million dollar avionics systems and we've got the real deal out here on the flightlines so it was very intimidating as an airman and we do see that in AVF and in the follow-on courses. - That's interesting though that the Air Force has been able to put together training for generations now that can take a kid fresh out of high school and put 'em on combat aircraft. All right, that's awesome. Next thing I wanna ask about is some of the avionics specialties that airmen could advance to once they finish AVF like after here. - So there's a bunch of different model aircrafts and they've kind of been separated into different courses. The ones I'm most familiar with are on the fighter side. So a lot of the kids, they complete the AVF they go over the fighters and they're going to go either through the F-15 course or the A-10 U2 course, F-16, F-35, F-22 or RPA. All those course are combined underneath the fighter flight and then they used to have CV-22 but they've recently pulled them out and they now go to additional training outside of Sheppard for the CV-22's. - And I'm on the heavy side. On a fighter they have a lot of avionics but there's specialties whether it's radios or electronic warfare you're just avionics. But on larger aircraft there's more room so there's even more avionics. So we split that up. We just call those heavies and that could be C-17's which is what I worked on, C-130, C-5's, B-1's, B-2's all sorts of bombers, AWACS, the ISR platforms which is Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance. And those are split into even further down to specialties so you got your ComNav who work on radios, navigation systems you have your electronic warfare, the jammers, the deception devices. And then of course you have instrument flight control so all the gauges, instruments the pilots are looking at when they're flying to make sure they have engine oil pressure, fuel, that their flight services are doing what they're commanding them to do. - Wow, okay. - And there is one additional course. Neither of us have anything to do with them but the backshop course which is another integral part in the maintenance complex. These are people that actually work on the LRU's that we would pull off of the aircraft. - Okay, yeah I remember a little bit about when I was enlisted I was munitions and I remember I had friends that were backshop but I never really understood what that was. - Yeah we'll take a part off the aircraft and we'll send it back to an avionics backshop and they crack it open and they replace the circuit cards, resistors all that kind of stuff. - Okay, gotcha. Okay, awesome. Okay so Master Sergeant Churchill if you could tell us just a little bit about EW and what airmen trained in that specialty do with a couple examples for fighters and heavies which you already kinda talk about. - Okay. - And then about how long it traditionally takes an airman to complete that training. - Okay, absolutely. So I'll do my best 'cause I'm ComNav by trade and I went through the ComNav tech school. And shortly, a couple years ago about four years ago actually they merged my career field with EW and they called it the Mobility Air Forces course or Integrated Counter-Measures Communications Navigations. So come out of Sheppard I'm kind of behind the times on the EW stuff but I had to learn. I had to pick up my lesson plans and teach that course and EW's not too far detached from what ComNav is. We're still talking about receiving signals but where in ComNav we're talking about radios, communications, navigation aids in EW it is more I wanna know what the bad guy is using. I want to deceive him. I want to jam them. I wanna make sure that they can't debilitate my aircraft in any way. So they learn a lot of really, really cool stuff over in EW. It was really interesting for me to go over there and learn some of that stuff. We're talking about not just jamming devices and receiving radar warning receivers things like that but also counter-measures dispensing. Flares, chaff those munitions that dispense from the aircraft and they 100% keep the aircrew safe. So when we tell the airmen you know hey you're keeping lives you're keeping people alive, EW we absolutely mean it. Those systems are going to be the last line of defense in some cases between a rocket or a missile hitting the aircraft. - Gotcha. - Traditionally you know they have couple courses over there that they teach. They have one primarily for the ISR platforms which those are the radar warning receivers, the deception jamming devices and that one is about 23 academic days and then the course that Airman Sandoval went through it's about 51 academic days. So they're here for awhile. And academic days it doesn't count take into account weekends, or holidays things like that so it could really add up if they're here over Thanksgiving holiday or something like that. - Okay. We can all kinda talk about this a little bit I mean I know we've talked about a little bit before but when everything's said and done with training considered for AVF and EW how many academic days were we looking at with traditionally like not what Sandoval completed in what in terms of like both these courses combined. - You said your course was 52 days? - It's right around 51 academic days. - And mine's 39 so you're looking at 90 days worth of training. And as you said that doesn't include weekends that doesn't include holidays or anything like that. - Sometimes Sergeant Kennedy's course in AVF will finish and I physically don't have an instructor available so a student's going to SAT status or SAT status, student's awaiting training. - Right. - We try to keep that to a bare minimum but sometimes just due to instructors not being available or currently teaching a course they might sit for additional two, three days. - Yeah and that's if you know if it doesn't hit over accidents or something like that. - Worst case scenario, yes sir. - Yeah you know they could really be here a long time. So I know you guys are well versed with some of the things Lieutenant General Steven Kwast has challenged the AETC to do. And as far as the paradigms that he's thrown out those being that time is no longer a constant to give some of that academic control to the student and to teach in context of the mission in terms of Airman Sandoval what was your recollection from a professional standpoint of this guy when he showed up? - Oh man, so as soon as I met him, he was just professional. This is somebody who I like to describe as perfect three level. I wish I could clone him and everybody's got their issues and not everybody adapts as easily into the military lifestyle as others. But I could tell he was very mature. - Were you guys, sorry but were you guys both younger 'cause Sandoval was in his like 30's right? - Correct. - I remember meeting him when we did our interview with him. - And he's older than me. - Yeah and thinking like but even at his age - Actually he was 36, 37. I'm 31 now, I was 17 when I joined. I was in the delayed entry program. But I think I joined shortly after my 18th birthday. - Okay, what about you? - I actually came in just before I turned 21. I had initially gone to college but had some issues it wasn't really working out for me and I got out of college and then came in the military. So I had that first kind of defeat in my life. That first real, real issue. And so when I came in I was pretty motivated and I saw a lot of that in him. - Yeah, I agree. - This was a guy who was professional. He was motivated, he was energetic. He wanted you know to move forward and we gave him an option and he really executed the plan to a t. - It was a lot on him. - Yeah for sure. Like I said, I remember when I met him thinking like even at 31 I don't think I was this squared away you know. So that's really interesting. So an opportunity definitely presented itself to do something different with Airman Sandoval in relation to those paradigms. Can you just talk a little bit more about like how things shook out chronologically when it came to his training in terms of putting him on a fast track to get him through training. - So that actually started with myself. I got a call from our training manager and he said hey I have an interesting case over here can you come across the street. He said I have a student that I think we can proficiency advance and I wanna know your thoughts on it. - And that's been around for a long time, proficiency advancement. - It can be difficult to do. Because per the letter of the ATCI which most of those have been rescinded or extremely reduced in size, under the old ATCI's it was kinda difficult to do because they had to make it through all the tests and all the PC's and we still did that and Airman Sandoval did great but we were able to kind of deviate a little bit from that still within the letter of the law and the intent of the AFI's. But yes it has been around for a while. So I got this call from our training manager and he told me to come across the street and he wanted us specifically do you think this guy can be proficiency advanced through the course. And I instantly being a different AFC said all right I'm gonna grab a subject matter expert and I brought one of my instructors, Sergeant Raymer across the street and said hey we're gonna sit down with this guy and I want your opinion because he's gonna go to some of those platforms that you've worked your entire career and I came off cargo C-17's working radios. I want your opinion on this airman and kinda where he stands avionics wise. And I knew he had some training, some background. - And what was that, what was that. - So he'd actually gotten a associates degree in I believe aircraft maintenance. I think he had his A and P license and he'd actually been working for the police department maintaining I believe helicopters. - Helicopters yep. - Gotcha okay. - It's like their equivalent of Black Hawks or something along those lines. So we sat down and it was just a no brainer. I sat with him that he knew what he was doing. He could talk about, he gave one example we just continuous wave radar. Well in my job as civilian mechanic maintaining helicopters I've changed lots of radar altimeters and they operate in this frequency range and I've used these radios and these devices. And okay what about, have you used oscilloscopes and have you used spectrum analyzers and he could walk you through it. And I'm telling you that when he went through the course, we could sit back and it was he could fire up the spectrum analyzer, fire up the o scope. I don't wanna say better than the instructors but as well as the instructors I'll say it that way. He was very proficient on it so Sergeant Raymer and I kinda quizzed him and sat down and we were there for awhile kind of asking him what his experience was and where we thought we could start him. And between the three of us, my subject matter expert and the training manager we decided that he could probably go right into the EW course which is what we initially did. We decided to forgo the avionics fundamentals because he had already had that background. Sergeant Kennedy was mentioning he knew how to use the basic hand tools 'cause he'd been doing it for ten years. He already knew how to use the o scopes, spectrum analyzers. He knew how to remove and replace components. The piece that he was missing was the Air Force side of it. Hey these are the specific systems that we use on these air frames. This is how aircraft maintenance is done in the Air Force as far as the forms that we use things like that. So we made the decision to put him in to the Electronic Warfare course directly. And then about couple weeks into it we realized we'd kinda gotten ahead of ourselves so to speak. And that we hadn't crossed all of our t's dotted all of our i's so that's when he ended up taking a hiatus from the EW course to go back to check those avionics fundamentals boxes with Sergeant Kennedy. - Gotcha. - Yeah, I was sitting in the office I got the phone call they told me basically what had happened. That they had thought that he could be waved from the AVF process and just go directly to the follow-on course and then as they were doing the paperwork they found out that that was not the case in this situation and what we could do for him. So I said this is what we'll do. We'll bring him in we've got a couple study rooms that we have for the students. We'll put him in a study room. We'll give him the block, he can review it and we'll test him. He passes the test we'll go on to the next block. If he can't pass that, that's exactly where we'll start him in the course and we'll look for the very first class that's at that point and we'll slide him in. He was very confident when he came in. Very professional and we set it up and I told him this is a lot on you. How fast you wanna get through this and he wanted to get through it really fast. He got through the whole course in five days. - Wow. - He came in, he sat down took a block. Reviewed through it and spent about ten minutes with an instructor asking a couple quick questions and then took the test and he did well on all his tests. And then we went and took him to the lab where we do our hands on and then just ran him through the lab real quick. It's really quick to do a single person on the lab. Normally we're doing 20 people at once which kinda slows it down per single instructor. But one-on-one they're able to accomplish the lab in I think a day. So that got everything that he needed to do. The 82 objectives that are part of the AVF course. He was certified in everything and then we were able to send him back to the heavies to finish up the follow-on course. - And something to point out too is when we did that initial sit down with Airman Sandoval, we made the decision and then we said let's come up with some goals. What kind of time frame you looking for? How fast do you wanna do this? And what we had decided to do just because all of our instructors it's gonna be very difficult for any schoolhouse to say hey I'm gonna give you this one instructor to sit with you because most of the time those instructors have another class of eight to 12 students that they're working with or even 20 in Sergeant Kennedy's case. So we'd come up with his goals and we had decided that since he had had some college experience let's do this like colleges do this where if you've ever taken a college class online they're very asynchronous. You meet on your own time and these are the objectives you have done by the end of the week and if you can get 'em finished cool if not then you're gonna get zero's for those or in Airman Sandoval's case we're not talking about zero's we're just hey how fast can you do it? That's up to you, how fast you want to do it. And we're gonna go at your pace and he kind of - He was doing some like where maybe I'm wrong here but I thought I remember hearing something about him doing like coming down on some weekends to work on some stuff or I guess he was working on it. - He was working on that stuff by himself on the weekends we would always sit down at the end of the day and like okay where you at, what do you wanna do tomorrow and he would say like all right well tomorrow I would like to complete this objective, this objective, this objective so I'm gonna go home and study over the weekend. So Monday's were normally he could get a lot done on Monday like a block test or you know couple PC's knocked out because he'd had a whole weekend. He was very motivated, very dedicated to get that stuff done. He was never rushed by any of the instructors 'cause we just said hey we'll go at your own pace just like an asynchronous college course would go. Complete what you can on your own time and we'll be there to answer any questions as you need us. - That's awesome. So was there like a, I mean I'm sure every instructor that touched this was involved so I'm not really looking for a number but was there more of like a small core group of people that were really ensuring that this was going through or was it a big collaboration. - For sure, for sure. One of our civilian instructors, Mr. Manning, was absolutely influential in getting Airman Sandoval out. Mr. Harrington another one of our civilian instructors. Sergeant Raymer, Sergeant DeLallo. We had a lot of, probably about four or five instructors that really dedicated themselves, stayed late to answer questions. They would be on break from their class, their teaching and they'd sit with Airman Sandoval to answer any questions. - Oh that's awesome. - Pulling double duty. - Yeah for sure. Which instructors are often doing anyway. Okay, so I think we've kinda gone over this but just to kinda summarize it a little bit. When it was all said and done, how long did it take him to finish AFV and EW to the standards that were required by the curriculum? - Right around 23 days. - Okay for total and yeah 90 days and he finished in right around 23? - Correct. - That's incredible. And we've already talked about some of the challenges during that process. I'm curious I know he was doing a lot of like self-paced stuff and he was doing a lot of one-on-one stuff but he was in a class, like the day we came out to interview him he was in, he was on a flightline but in a training environment with a bunch of other students. Just in terms of like the other students in the class what was his effect on, was everybody else more motivated trying to keep with this guy? - Absolutely, absolutely. That was something that every instructor 'cause he would schedule his labs, that's kinda what we called 'em, it's just like in college you know schedule your lab with your professor. He would either meet with myself or Mr. Manning and say I'm at this point in the objective where I need to go out to the flightline and ops check the countermeasures dispensing system. Okay well I have a class going out tomorrow so we'll pencil you in to go out with this class and he absolutely had that effect on the students across the board. Just showing 'em what's capable, what somebody's capable of when they put their mind to it and when they're focused and motivated. They were all happy to see him complete those objectives so it was mentality that was just contagious. - Right, everybody's kinda trying to keep pace. Was that pretty much what you saw too Sergeant Kennedy? - He didn't have as much interaction with the students on the AVF side and a lot of it was because he was going so quick and just the way we do things. So for us he was really just kind of like being on a online course. - Okay. - He had a room though instead and it was paper books. But it would be like him going home logging on to the computer and he would here's the first thing I need to do and read through it, take the test, complete it, move on to the next. Had a lot of interaction with a couple of our instructors and everyone who dealt with him really spoke highly of him you know because we did give him a lot of the freedom so he could have really kind of tried to play a game. He could've you know dragged it out a little bit. He could've been you know trying to disappear but you know it actually got to the point where I had to go check on him every now and then, make sure he's taking some breaks because I didn't want him burning himself out. There was a couple times where he was you know the day was done and he was like I'm really close to being finished with this block can we stay? So we made arrangements for him with that. But he didn't really have a lot of interaction other than when he went to the break room with the other students. - Right he doesn't have time, he's working. - Oh yeah but I do think anyone that is well put together and really doing what they're supposed to you know that stands out. And I think when you see that you know a lot people try to emulate things when you see someone doing really well and they're looking a notch above everyone it kinda challenges everyone so I think it was a positive experience and I'm pretty sure that through the grapevine everyone knew about him even if they didn't really have to deal with him too much. - Yeah, yeah I can imagine. - Which really makes me think with that mentality that I was telling you was contagious if we could afford this to the students on a broader basis meaning we had a kanda site or dot edu site where students could work like this at home. I think there would be a lot of students maybe not all of 'em but I think a vast majorities hey we could get you out of tech school quicker if you go at your own pace and you have that mentality. I absolutely think that students would work. - I agree with you. We were talking about that last year really when we were looking at some big concept stuff in terms of how education specifically for VR and AR would be delivered to students. But in the future, down the road what would that look like in a day room environment where you could go down and there's a section set up down there where you could go in and work if you want to instead of whatever you're studying, everybody needs a break but if you're that, if you're motivated like this guy's motivated it's possible. - And you know there's usually a pretty decent sized gap from when you first sign your enlistment paperwork with the recruiter to when you actually go through MEPS and start your basic training. So if we could get some online courses I mean especially I think the AVF side of things that could be completely done except for maybe like the week of lab part online. And I mean he saved basically about 85 hundred dollars in training costs because he was so quick and able to get through that course. Could we take a little bit of that money and have a bonus and say anyone that gets all this done you get an extra thousand dollars and still wind up on the positive side of things? - For sure. Yeah that's a really good idea. - So that's you know that paradigm of putting the training in the students hands and with Sandoval we did that. Could you have other students with those .edu those kandas type sites where they can access the training early before MEPS, things like that. I think the benefits to not just AETC but the Air Force, man it would be. - That's big money saving right there. - Absolutely. - Especially as that stuff has gotten more and more - Prevalent. - Right. It's not like it's a foreign concept to do that. - Yeah I just completed by bachelor's degree in December and it was all online through Arizona State University. So I don't see why we couldn't put some of our stuff on that same kind of technique and I like I said put a little reward out there for it and you'll still wind up on the positive side of things financially. - Yeah that's really good. Could we talk about the students a little bit just on the cadre side of things like as far as a ripple effect through the squadron. Has this had you know an effect as far as the instructors looking at how this training was delivered or maybe how we an adjust fire I mean I realize this is a unique example. It's not gonna come along all the time. But like we were just talking about, there are opportunities because of what was possible here to apply on a broader spectrum. Have there been any kind of specific discussions about that that you can remember? - I haven't seen anything on that scale. You know decreasing training by that many days but I've definitely seen more proficiency advancements. I think instructors, flight chiefs everyone is on the look out for people that come in you know Airman Sandoval I wish we had caught him sooner and said oh you have an A and P license you know let's we could've eliminated even more training probably. We could've if we had gotten our ducks in a row and done things the correct way, he might've been able to shave another five days off. - Yeah. - And skipped avionics fundamentals potentially. I don't know with a 100% certainty but we are on the lookout for students like that. Which is what General Kwast has told us to do is look for those students that time isn't the constant anymore for them and they have the training already so we can look for those opportunities. - Yeah. - We've had about two or three other students that we've been able to push through AVF since him. He came through I believe we had one person who had like a associates in physics degree and was really knowledgeable in electronics and pretty much did the same path with him. And then we had someone else who I think they tested up to like block five of our seven blocks before they failed and then we just was able to insert them into the block five class and push 'em through so they sped things up a lot. You know like you said proficiency testing has been around for awhile. I think the thing that's different now is we actually have a lot of leadership that is talking about using it and being more flexible where before it might have been frowned on a little bit like why are we going to do this? You know everyone else came through the course he can just sit in a course if he's so smart it should be real easy for him. And that you know tends to kinda bore people. Kinda puts them in a bad mood. Here you are you're all excited your ready trying to move on and do something and they're like no just sit down and shut up and go through the course. So we're starting to break down those barriers and I think it's really improving The Air Force and I'm hoping it leads to greater efficiencies. I know we have a lot of instructors that are really high on trying to make changes and trying to improve the way we teach. - So the mindsets changing a lot too. And I'm guessing in that mindset change, if we can make some ground level like infrastructure change because I'm sure you know just as we've had this discussion today, the instructors were fantastic at supporting Airman Sandoval but the infrastructure really isn't there to support this style of learning. So there's a lot of allotments that have to be made but if we carve something off to the side that says okay this new airman's been identified as someone who can fast track through this and we already have this setup for you to fast track through this rather than having to kind of make it as you go that would probably really improve things. - Oh absolutely. - I definitely agree. I think part of it is having the right tools and they've done a couple of CPI events on the base and there's some different projects coming out of it. I'm really hoping that they you know reach full implementation 'cause I think that they will give us the right tools that we need. One of the projects that we're interested in is we're looking at teaching with tablets and television. And tablets, they're cheap, they're efficient and it's a flexible tool that if we do go to an online course where the ability to do online tablets the right tool for it for these students. You know if we bring that online then maybe we can push that out and say hey if you've got smart students that are coming in and they've got three or four months before they make basic and we know that they're going to this particular career field give 'em this code, they log on, they go through a non-classified course as far as they get through like I said we can have a little bit of possible some sort of monetary bonus for them that gives them a little motivation, gives them a little reward for it and then saves us some money. So then maybe we get five students that come through and they complete up to block four and we can slide 'em into the block four test and push 'em out and give them that hands on that they need to complete the rest of the course. - Yeah really just needs to be like when I think, I've thought about that a lot actually, like you know I have kids in my home and they're in elementary school and junior high school they bring home Chromebooks everyday. Like we're doing this in elementary school. We're the most advanced you know military in the world we're a little behind on this. We could apply some of those things if we really sit down as a team and do it. - And they've talked about even you know all the students have their phones hopefully not on them in a class not a course but you know most students have their phones. They have tablets at home giving 'em the access to just maybe we don't give 'em the tablets per se but they have access to the websites that they can go to and download stuff and work at home on their own time. 'Cause purchasing a lot of tablets it is expensive. I think in the long run it's cheaper than all the paper we go through. - Yeah for sure. - But I think you hit the nail on the head with the infrastructure. Infrastructure would be big in allowing us to do this more often and save the Air Force a lot of money. - Yeah in the long run I agree. - And that's a wrap just like that episode number nine of Developing Mach-21 Airmen is in the books. So exciting to see how our Air Force and specifically AETC is working to create this learning environment that postures us in the best way possible to provide more fighters who are ready and lethal to combatant commanders around the globe. We wanna say thank you to James Rumfelt and the Sheppard Public Affairs team as well as Master Sergeant Kennedy and Master Sergeant Churchill for taking time out to work on this addition of the pod for us. As a reminder you can follow Air Education and Training Command via social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as on the web at www.aetc.af.mil Thanks for checking out the podcast as we dive into the world of recruiting, training and education for our entire AETC Public Affairs staff I'm Dan Hawkins so long we'll talk to you next time on Developing Mach-21 Airmen.