October 28, 2007: With the price of jet fuel soaring, and demand for air freight services to Iraq and Afghanistan up as well, the U.S. Air Force sought efficiency advice from American airlines and parcel delivery companies. As a result, the air force has reduced fuel consumptions (airline pilots have been developing new "fuel efficient" flying techniques for decades.) Maintenance has been streamlined, and air cargo is moving faster to the combat zone. This is not the first time the air force has adopted civil aviation techniques. It's been done in the past. But this time around, thousands of air force reservists, who work in the airline and parcel delivery industries, have been mobilized, and began noting that the "air force way," of doing lots of things, had fallen way behind more recent, and more efficient, civilian methods. So the air force generals eventually got the word, and ordered the civilian practices to be observed, and adopted by the air force, whenever that was possible.