Tactically Minded: The Air Force is establishing an Intra-Theater Airlift Working Group to determine how best to comply with the language in this fiscal year's defense authorization act mandating the restoration of 32 tactical airlifters that the service leadership intended to retire. The working group will provide recommendations to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley by the end of January, service spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told the Daily Report on Jan. 4. Donley will then announce his final decision on the restorals "sometime after that meeting," she said. The working group will comprise representatives from the Active Duty component (e.g. headquarters staff, Air Mobility Command), Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve, said Stefanek. Among the group's members is Lt. Gen. Michael Moeller who's in charge of strategic plans and programs on the Air Staff, according to a release from Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa,) who is fighting to save the C-130 flying mission of Air Force Reserve Command's 911th Airlift Wing in Pittsburgh. Congress gave the Air Force the latitude to decide whether the 32 airlifters retained are C-130s or a mix of C-130s and C-27Js. President Obama signed the defense legislation into law on Jan. 2.

More Help for Sexual Assault Victims: The Air Force is launching the Special Victims' Counsel Program later this month to provide legal assistance to victims of sexual assault, announced service officials. The program will help victims navigate the criminal justice system with lawyers who expressed a desire to help and are specially trained to handle the victims' unique needs, states a Jan. 5 service release. "It takes a strong team to succeed in our mission to protect and defend the nation, and sexual assault undermines that," said Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. He continued, "The Special Victims' Counsel will provide victims of sexual assault with a better understanding of the criminal process from an expert who is specially qualified to represent the victim. This program embodies what the Air Force is all about—taking care of our people." The program will provide 60 attorneys Air Force-wide who will be placed geographically. "If you are a victim of sexual assault, the Special Victims' Counsel is your attorney—you have complete attorney-client confidentiality and they will zealously advocate on your behalf," said Lt. Gen. Richard Harding, the Air Force's judge advocate general. (See also Top Officials Address Sexual Assault in Letter to Airmen.)

Congress Wants Survey of RPA Manning: Congress is looking for answers regarding the education, training, and promotion rates for Air Force operators of remotely piloted aircraft, according to language included in the Fiscal 2013 defense authorization act. Lawmakers want a report from service leadership within the next six months on this topic, according to Section 527 of the legislation. The report should address "the reasons for persistently lower average education and training and promotion rates" for RPA pilots and the long-term impact of sustaining such lower rates, states the act. The report should also contain a plan to raise the rates and an analysis of the potential impacts of the plan on achieving and sustaining the Air Force's RPA combat air patrol objectives. Senior Air Force leaders have for some time noted that the RPA field is still on a surge footing, pressing personnel into combat in Afghanistan while leaving little time for career development afforded other fields.

New Common Data Link Sought: The Air Force reached out to industry for input on robust data-link solutions to pass information from overhead intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets operating in network-centric environments. The service envisions a new common data link that is able to handle streams of video and other ISR data from multiple sources and also allows multiple users to access data, according to the request for information posted at the Federal Business Opportunities website on Jan. 4. The CDL should also "provide the ability to adjust link parameters on the fly" to keep the flow of information going in the face of varying operating conditions such as extreme ranges, states the notice. It should also be able to detect interference automatically and "go into an anti-jam mode" and then "return to normal mode" when jamming is no longer effective or present, states the RFI. The Air Force eyes a data link that it could field within a five-year span. Service officials want industry's feedback by Feb. 21. The service plans to host an industry day in late January in the Washington, D.C., area, according to the notice.

Relief for Whom?: As a result of H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, Defense Department civilians will see a reduction in their paychecks, while uniformed service members may see a change, announced Pentagon finance and accounting officials. The legislation, which President Obama signed on Jan. 2, restores Social Security withholding taxes to 6.2 percent—for the past several years, the rate was 4.2 percent—meaning DOD civilians will see a 2 percent reduction in net pay reflected in their January paychecks for the pay period ending on Dec. 29, 2012, states the Pentagon's Jan. 4 release. Uniformed military personnel "could see an increase in net pay, no change, or a decrease," since their net pay is "affected by a variety of additional factors, such as increases in basic allowances for housing, subsistence, longevity basic pay raises, and promotions," states the release. (See also Sequester Reprieve.)

Pelican Completes Ground-Handling Demo: Airship maker Aeros of Montebello, Calif., last week completed a ground-handling demonstration of its 230-foot-long Pelican "aeroscraft," a rigid, variable-buoyancy air vehicle prototype designed to haul massive amounts of cargo. The company is developing Pelican under Pentagon sponsorship. The demo showed that the 36,000-pound Pelican "can move without assistance from ground personnel, controlled from the cockpit and using its air-bearing landing gear," said Aeros CEO Igor Pasternak in a Jan. 4 posting at the news page of the company's website. He said Pelican was heavier than air for the demo. This was the first of four contractual demonstrations that the company expects to finish this week, said Pasternak. The remaining three are: a vertical takeoff, offloading payload—both without taking on ballast by varying the vehicle's buoyancy—and then showcasing the vehicle's lightweight aeroshell, which does not rely on pressurization for rigidity. Pelican is designed to be a "true" vertical-takeoff-and-landing platform "at the maximum payload of 66 tons with no infrastructure requirements," states the website. It 's meant to operate "at low speed, in hover, from unprepared surfaces, and off-load with minimum ground handling," according to the website. Montebello is east of Los Angeles.

For Those Needing More Spirit: One of the Air Force's B-2A stealth bombers, The Spirit of California, performed a flyover of the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena Calif., on New Year's Day. Here's the link to a video of the flyover, which is one of the public events in 2013 that the Air Force is using to celebrate the 20th anniversary year of the B-2, according to service officials. It was on Dec. 17, 1993, that the first operational B-2, The Spirit of Missouri, arrived at Whiteman AFB, Mo. The base is home to the 509th Bomb Wing, which operates the 20-aircraft B-2 fleet. (See also link to B-2 video from Los Angeles' KTLA New Station 5.)

Recovered Airman's Remains Laid to Rest: The remains of Army Air Forces SSgt. Zoltan J. Dobovich, 21, of Rieglesville, Pa., who had been missing in action since 1946, were laid to rest late last month. Dobovich was interred with full military honors on Dec. 27 at the Brig. Gen. William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Wrightstown, N.J. (Video of ceremony) He was one of eight crewmembers aboard a B-17G Flying Fortress that went missing after departing from Naples, Italy, on Nov. 1, 1946, bound for Bovington, England. In 1947, a French military unit recovered human remains from the wreckage of a US aircraft in the French-Italian Alps, near Estellette Glacier, according to the Defense Department's release last month on Dobovich. Technology limitations of the time prevented the identification of the individual crewmembers, so the Pentagon interred them as a group at Arlington National Cemetery. Between 1983 to 1999, additional remains and personal effects were recovered at the crash site. In 2010, due to technology advances, DOD forensic scientists were able to identify Dobovich's remains. The remains of TSgt. William S. Cassell of Mt. Airy, N.C., one of Dobovich's crewmates, were laid to rest in October in Amelia, Va.