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Air Force Materiel Command
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) is a major command of the United States Air Force. AFMC was created July 1, 1992 through the reorganization of Air Force Logistics Command and Air Force Systems Command.
AFMC is headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Ohio. Its commander is General Bruce Carlson, with Lieutenant General Terry L. Gabreski as Vice-commander, and Chief Master Sergeant Johnathan E. Hake being the Command Chief Master Sergeant of Air Force Materiel Command. It is one of ten major commands (MAJCOMs), reporting to Headquarters, United States Air Force (HQ USAF).
AFMC has a workforce of about 78,000 military and civilian personnel. It is the Air Force’s largest command in terms of funding and second in terms of personnel. AFMC’s operating budget represents 57 percent of the Air Force budget, and AFMC employs more than 40 percent of the Air Force’s total civilian workforce.
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Air Force Materiel Command conducts research, development, test and evaluation, and provides the acquisition management services and logistics support necessary to keep Air Force weapon systems ready for war. The command develops, acquires and sustains the aerospace power needed to defend the United States and its interests for today and tomorrow. This is accomplished through management, research, acquisition, development, testing and maintenance of existing and future weapons systems and their components
AFMC fulfills its mission of equipping the Air Force with the best weapon systems through the Air Force Research Lab and eight specialized centers responsible for the "cradle-to-grave" oversight for aircraft, electronic systems, missiles and munitions. For instance, weapon systems, such as aircraft and missiles, are developed and acquired through three product centers, using science and technology from the laboratory research sites. The systems are then tested at AFMC's two test centers. Over the system's lifetime, it may be serviced, upgraded or repaired at the three air logistics centers. The command's specialized units perform many other development and logistics functions, including scientific research and the retirement or sale of older systems.
The AFMC headquarters is a major unit located at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. There are 10 AFMC host bases:
- Arnold AFB, Tennessee
- Brooks City-Base, Texas
- Edwards AFB, California
- Eglin AFB, Florida
- Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts
- Hill AFB, Utah
- Kirtland AFB, New Mexico
- Robins AFB, Georgia
- Tinker AFB, Oklahoma
- Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
- 88th Air Base Wing
- Aeronautical Systems Center
- Air Force Research Laboratory
- Air Force Security Assistance Center
- National Museum of the United States Air Force
In addition, the command operates associate units on several non-AFMC bases. Also see AFMC's units web page: Units.
Air Force Materiel Command traces its heritage to 1917 when the Equipment Division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps established a headquarters for its new Airplane Engineering Department at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, a World War I experimental engineering facility.
The functions of research and development and logistics were operated separately during World War II until they were reunited for several years in the late 1940s under Air Materiel Command. Then, in 1950, research and development were split off into a separate organization, the Air Research and Development Command.
In 1961, Air Materiel Command became the Air Force Logistics Command, while the Air Research and Development Command gained responsibility for weapon system acquisition and was renamed the Air Force Systems Command.
On July 1, 1992, the Air Force Logistics Command and Air Force Systems Command were reintegrated to form the new Air Force Materiel Command.
AIMACO is an acronym for AIr MAterial COmmand (the US Air Force Supply Control Command) compiler. It began around 1959 as the definition of a high level programming language influenced by the Flow-Matic language developed by UNIVAC and the COMTRAN (COMmercial TRANslator) programming language developed by IBM. AIMACO, along with FLOW-MATIC and COMTRAN, were precursors to the COBOL programming language and influenced its development.
A committee chaired by a representative of AMC (the Air Material Command) and composed of industry representatives from IBM and United States Steel, as well as members of AMC Programming Services, developed the draft AIMACO language definition. Even though the word "compiler" was part of its name, no compiler was ever written for it; although at least two were specified or designed.
The original intention of AMC was that all programming for AMC systems worldwide would be written in AIMACO and compiled on a UNIVAC in AMC headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. This would be for systems whether they were to operate on UNIVAC or IBM computers. An alternative compiler was designed by AMC Programming Services persons to compile systems on IBM computers for operation on IBM computers.
In 1964, a simulation computer language named MIMIC was developed by H. E. Petersen, F. J. Sansom and L. M. Warshawsky of Systems Engineering Group at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. With this expression-oriented continuous block simulation language, ordinary differential equations describing mathematical models from the field of aviation dynamics could easily be solved on Control Data supercomputers by numerical integration, and the results of the analysis were listed or drawn in diagrams.[1]
Much of this text in an early version of this article was taken from pages on the Air Force Materiel Command, website, which as a work of the U.S. Government is presumed to be a public domain resource.
