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Force shakeup

More than 10,000 airmen. Some 600 aircraft. Dozens of bases, wings, squadrons, training centers and depots.

All are affected by a sweeping force structure plan that, starting this fall, will reshape U.S. air power more than any initiative in decades.

The plan represents a dramatic shift away from fighter aircraft — the heart of the Air Force since Vietnam — and toward the Pentagon’s priorities of more robust intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; a greater focus on irregular warfare; more attention to the nuclear enterprise; and increasing emphasis on special operations forces.

“The Air Force has worked to achieve the proper balance across our personnel, infrastructure, readiness, and investment portfolios while fully committed to supporting overseas contingency operations,” reads the force structure announcement released June 26. “These ... changes enhance the Air Force’s ability to create, protect, and sustain all air and space forces across the full range of military operations ... [and] support new and emerging missions for the Air Force.”

Winners and losers

The core of the plan is the retirement of 254 fighter aircraft and the transfer of about 4,000 airmen’s billets from fighter units to ISR, unmanned aerial vehicle, nuclear, maintenance and special operations career fields. Some airmen will have to transfer bases or retrain for new career fields; others will be reassigned at their current locations. All told, more than 10,000 billets will be eliminated, added or shifted to a different base or unit.

For many of the Air Force’s 100 or so active-duty, Reserve and Guard bases, the plan offers something — good or bad.

The hardest hit is Hill Air Force Base, Utah, which will lose 24 F-16s and more than 700 active-duty airmen, 13 percent of its population. Luke Air Force, Ariz., will lose 10 percent of its airmen, and Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., is losing 48 of its 53 F-15Cs as the platform’s schoolhouse downsizes and relocates to the Air National Guard’s 173rd Fighter Wing at Kingsley Field, Ore.

The big winner is Barksdale Air Force Base, La., headquarters of the new Global Strike Command, which will control all of the service’s nuclear missions inside the United States. Nearly 750 airmen will be added to Barksdale’s population when the new major command stands up in September. Hurlburt Field, Fla., will add 435 airmen because of the focus on special operations. Beale Air Force Base, Calif., stands to gain 348 military personnel and 13 RQ-4B Global Hawks for the 9th Reconnaissance Wing as part of the growth of ISR capabilities.

Eight fighter squadrons are losing all or most of their aircraft, though not all the squadrons have been named and the Air Force did not respond when asked if squadrons losing their aircraft will be deactivated.

The eight squadrons and their locations, according to Air Force documents, are the 19th Fighter Squadron at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska; one squadron from the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.; the 58th Fighter Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.; two squadrons from the 325th Fighter Wing at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla.; the 188th Fighter Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.; one squadron from the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah; and the 71st Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Va.

A reality check

But whether the plan — broadly outlined in May by Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and strongly supported by Defense Secretary Robert Gates — will become a reality is another matter. Lawmakers in Congress are skeptical of the realignment, in part because they don’t want to see aircraft and jobs moved out of their home states.

The House Armed Services Committee inserted a provision in its version of the defense authorization bill that would bar the Air Force from executing the plan until it fully justifies the proposals to lawmakers. The Senate bill supports the plan, setting up a possible showdown when the two chambers convene later this year to work out the differences in their versions of the bill.

Mackenzie Eaglen, an Air Force expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, opposes the plan because it hurts U.S. air dominance by retiring fighters without buying enough new ones. She is calling on lawmakers to kill the proposal.

“Congress needs to assert its leadership over the budgetary process and ensure that appropriate steps are taken to acquire new and replacement fighters to meet the fighter gap and to continue American air superiority and dominance into the next decade,” she said. “The last time I checked the Constitution, the U.S. Congress gets the last word on the president’s budget submission. This [plan] is clearly [putting] the cart before the horse.”

What the future holds

The plan released by the Air Force covers only fiscal 2010, which starts Oct. 1, and does not take into account some upcoming moves that will affect bases and airmen.

Not included in the 2010 plan are about 400 airmen who will move to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, over the next 18 months for the stand-up of 24th Air Force, the new cyber organization; another 400 or so who will staff a new nuclear B-52 squadron, likely at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.; an undetermined number of airmen to fly and maintain the new MC-12 light reconnaissance aircraft; and a plus-up in acquisition career fields.

Also not included are most of the F-35s — and airmen tied to the Joint Strike Fighter program — that the Air Force will buy in the next five years. Hill Air Force Base will get back some of its lost personnel beginning in 2012 as one of the initial operational bed-down locations for the new stealth aircraft, and Eglin will gain airmen beyond 2010 as the primary maintenance and flight training site.

Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop is concerned about how Hill, which is in his district, will fare between when the F-16s leave and the F-35s show up.

“We should never remove a plane until we have a replacement ready to be used,” Bishop said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune. “We are not there yet.”

Kadena Air Base, Japan, and Shaw Air Force Base and McEntire Air National Guard Base, both in South Carolina, also will be initial bed-down locations for the F-35.

Other bases — including Tyndall, which is losing its F-15s — remain in the running, and local officials and lawmakers are lobbying hard for the aircraft and the jobs they will bring.

A decision on future F-35 sites is not expected until sometime next year.

READ MORE:

* Force Structure Announcement

* Force Structure Plan

DISCUSS: The plan