Air Force reaches 75 percent deployment-capable rate Published Feb. 27, 2003 By Master Sgt. Scott Elliott Air Force Print News WASHINGTON -- In just more than a year, the number of "deployable" airmen has increased to nearly 75 percent of all Air Force members.That increase reflects a growth of nearly 100,000 in just the past year.The increase in deployment rolls is not because more people joined the service. According to Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Peppe, special assistant for air and space expeditionary forces at the Pentagon, it was simply a matter of Air Force people working very hard on the problem."It's Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper's vision that we should maximize the number of Air Force positions available for deployment," Peppe said.According to Peppe, commanders and career field functional area managers at both major command and Air Force levels examined each position in their fields to determine deployability. The managers then built the unit type codes, commonly referred to as UTCs, which postures each position.Only people in select career fields or positions are exempt from deployment. Those groups include people in scheduled "pipeline" training, many instructors, ROTC staff members, recruiters, the space cadre, missile crews and missile security professionals.The increase, Peppe said, came from MAJCOMs, Air Force headquarters staff, direct reporting units and field operating agencies, and they covered all career fields to some degree."Most of this increased deployment capability is in 'associate unit type codes,' so they're not primary deployers," Peppe said. "But the bottom line is we have them (ready), and we have their specialties and positions cataloged. They've been put in an AEF, and if we have a need for a particular Air Force specialty code, the AEF Center at Langley Air Force Base, Va., has the means to find them."While the service has identified 269,000 deployment positions, the general said that there is not always a person available to deploy in the required specialty."It goes back to our career-field shortages and the skills-mix issues we have in the Air Force," Peppe said. "We have some career fields with shortages, but it takes time to realign manpower authorizations to our relatively new expeditionary posture, and then recruit and train personnel in these specialties. That's part of the rebalancing act we've been dealing with."According to Peppe, the increase is significant because greater numbers help meet the needs of combatant commanders and spreads the "pain" of deployment over a broader population."This allows us to have about 75 percent of the Air Force (ready) for deployment," Peppe said.