The Air Force plans to conduct no-notice inspections of units to test their combat readiness, a senior Air Force official announced last week.
Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Scott Pleus announced the plans on Thursday, while speaking at the 2026 Airpower Forum on a panel about the force’s readiness. Pleus said that Air Force leaders “have reinstituted combat readiness inspections; they are no-notice.”
The news was first reported by Air & Space Forces Magazine. The decision was made by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, Pleus said. It also comes as the service adjusts its reviews and inspections of troop housing, uniforms and appearance and other parts of military life.
Pleus said that the decision to enact no-notice inspections is meant to ensure that commanders are keeping their units ready for any and all combat operations.
“That is not the job of the staff; that is not the job of the headquarters,” he said, per Air & Space Forces Magazine. “That is 100% in their wheelhouse. If they fail an inspection, that is a commander’s fault.”
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Pleus was nonspecific on what these inspections would entail, except to say that they would involve a large team of inspectors suddenly showing up. Combat readiness inspections, such as those done by Air Combat Command last year, involved teams of inspectors visiting units for sudden exercises to test their ability to quickly mobilize for missions. The frequency of these reviews was also not revealed. Pleus also said that despite the nature of these inspections, they would be different from past surprise visits.
The announcement of no-notice inspections comes only weeks after Wilsbach adjusted policies to require only an annual standards and readiness reviews for units. That decision reversed a policy from earlier in 2025 mandating quarterly standards and readiness reviews. In a social media post in December following Wilsbach’s change, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Wolfe said that decision was made following feedback from airmen. The move to only a single annual review “reflects confidence in our leaders to know their Airmen, manage readiness, and address issues on the daily, not just during a scheduled review.”
The latest in a series of overhauls this past year to the Air Force’s inspections for units, uniforms and appearance and barracks, something Pleus linked the new combat readiness reviews to. In October the Air Force required a direct inspection of all barracks and unaccompanied housing units to make sure that airmen’s living conditions met standards.
