The Air Force Is Changing How Special Ops Fighters Are Trained
Big data and new technology help the USAF determine their elite fighters' precise mental and physical limits—and push past them.
By Joe Pappalardo
Feb 12, 2019
What's it like to train with Air Force human performance specialists? Find out here.
The future of the U.S. Air Force special operations stomps into the room on the double—in the form of a half-dozen men and women, fresh out of Basic Training, clad in identical off-white T-shirts and blue shorts. At Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, no trainee walks. Ever. This facility is about sustained maximum effort.
The trainees want to be among the Air Force’s elite Special Warfare troops, those who leap from airplanes on rescue missions or embed with front-line troops to direct air strikes. But before they can do that, they face a gantlet of unforgiving qualification courses with infamously high wash-out rates. A Rand report from May 2018 found that the attrition rate during the initial Special Warfare assessment and selection course hovers at roughly 75 percent.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a26017719/air-force-special-ops/
