qualified or not, it was important to get experience regardless of the cost. Even Bomber and tanker pilots were given a quick-checkout in fighter jets and sent off to war because no pilot was to spend over a year in Theatre. Because of this policy many pilots were needlessly killed or captured as well as a drop in effective air strikes. One of the biggest jokes of the 1960's was the evaluations of TAC air, the fighter groups. The General in charge created the Management Computation System. It kept track of every thing from bomb scores to bar bills being paid and base lawns being kept mowed and everything were equally weighted! In some cases commanding officers lost there jobs due to this ridiculous policy. It is absolutely ludicrous to have bars bills being paid on time to have same weighting as actual combat skills. These policies needed to be changed fast, if not the Air force would fall apart in the face of a real threat.One man that sought to restore the Air force to an operational platform was Bill Creech. His first reforms were to decentralize the systems and to restore confidence within the ranks. It was proven that centralization did not work, it was slow and lead to countless back ups in repairs and a lower number of flight capable aircraft as a result. Creech took over TAC in 1978 and sought to rearrange the system to work for the aircraft and mission capability not the other way around. Before his arrival the Air forces mission capability was horrendous and the time it took to get aircraft combat capable was simply inexcusable. When Creech first took command the overall mission capable rates were 50 percent or less, afterwards during the turmoil an stress of Desert Storm the overall mission capable rate was 95 percent. To correct this problem the centralization of supplies and work crews needed to be changed. Creech reorganized the entire system, flight line maintenance was now reorganized into product oriented squadron teams...
