Sunday, March 25, 2012

Flying to Pease? Base's Air Guard mission tied to new tanker

NEWINGTON — With the guts of a Boeing 767 commercial airplane, the new KC-46A air refueling tanker, under development by the Air Force, will present a significant advancement in refueling technology when it rolls off the assembly line in four or five years.

Because of its design, the craft can be used for a variety of purposes beyond air refueling, like evacuating people and moving cargo, according to Col. Paul Hutchinson, Wing Commander of the 157th Air Refueling Wing, which is headquartered at Pease Air National Guard Base in Newington. Receiving the next-generation aircraft will allow bases to expand their mission, he said.

But for Air National Guard installations such as Pease that fly refueling missions, there's more riding on the wings of the KC46-A tanker than a technological upgrade.

Bases across the country are facing budget cuts, as well as the potential for a new round of base closures. Therefore, being one of the first military installations to receive the KC-46A — the Air Force's premier refueling craft — could be consequential.

"In order for a great refueling unit like Pease to continue to be strong, and to make sure that Pease is not vulnerable at all to any kind of future BRAC (base closure) round, I think it's really important that they receive the latest tanker," said U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Part of an attempt to recapitalize the fleet, the KC-46A will replace aging KC-135 stratotankers, which were built in the late 1950s and 1960s. Pease houses eight of the tankers, which are the only aircraft at the site.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing received a multi-billion dollar contract to produce 179 KC-46A tankers, which are based on the Boeing 767. The first new KC-46A's are scheduled to be ready by 2017, and production of the remaining craft will continue for about a decade after that.

Next month, the Air Force is expected to release a set of criteria for selection of where the new KC-46A tankers will be based. Each eligible base will receive a score, and scores will be used to determine a list of candidates to receive the first tankers that roll off the assembly line.

Spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said the Air Force will rely on "criteria-based analysis and military judgment" to determine which bases are ultimately selected.

There are 17 Air National Guard bases in the country that house air refueling tankers. Air refueling tankers are also stationed at four active-duty military bases in the country and a few more overseas, Hutchinson said, and a handful of other tankers are housed at reserve bases.

In total, there are approximately 415 KC-135's in use at those bases today, Hutchinson said. However, if that inventory is replaced with 179 tankers, simple math suggests fewer bases will be flying refueling missions in the future, he said.

"We believe that when there's an open and transparent process to determine where the basing goes, that Pease Air National Guard Base will be at the top of the list," Hutchinson said.

One advantage Pease holds in the basing process is its proximity to the "refueling track," or travel path, that more than 90 percent of all fighter aircraft use to reach operations in the Middle East. Planes carrying cargo and personnel to Europe and Africa also pass within a few minutes of Pease.

Another argument in favor of bringing KC-46A's to Pease is the base's track record of putting planes to use, Hutchinson said. Pease has remained open 24 hours a day since the Sept. 11 attacks. With refueling missions scheduled at all hours, guard troops at Pease flew more hours per airplane last year than any other Air National Guard unit in the country, logging an average of 895 hours of flight time per craft, he said.

"If we get that airplane — the first ones out — we have the capability to utilize that airplane at a high rate," Hutchinson said. "We have the ability to train on it quickly."

Some fear the Air Force has plans to base newer craft solely at the active-duty bases around the country, Hutchinson said. Currently, only about 40 percent of the KC-135's in the country are stationed at active-duty bases, while about 60 percent are distributed at Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard bases.

"We would advocate that the new airplanes should be fielded concurrently with the active duty, and in proportional amounts to where the airplanes are stationed now," Hutchinson said.

In addition to metrics like the base's proximity to air refueling tracks, Ayotte said criteria should include the experience of pilots at the base, among other things. During meetings with Air Force officials, Ayotte said she's been stressing the importance of using objective criteria, which protect against political influence.

"Obviously I haven't been in the Senate that long, but I think the concern is that yes, if it's objective and it's transparent, then we know what the criteria is, and you can measure it very clearly with metrics, as opposed to just having it based on politics, or, 'I like this person,' or, 'I don't like this person.'"

New Hampshire's other Senator, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, is also a member of the Armed Services Committee, and like Ayotte, she's been pushing for transparency and accountability in the base selection process. Shaheen said at a recent committee hearing she enumerated some of the base's strategic advantages, such as an on-site aircraft simulator, one of the longest runways on the East Coast and access to a railroad and port.

Representatives from the Air Force and the Department of Defense have been "fairly non-committal about the process," she said.

"As we were talking to the representative from the Air Force who was there, he acknowledged that most of the things that were mentioned would be part of the criteria, without actually giving us a list of what the actual criteria will be," she said.

Another unknown is how cuts in defense spending and the potential for base closures will factor into basing of the KC-46A. Defense spending will be cut by at least $487 billion over the next 10 years, under the budget passed by Congress last year.

In the short-term, that spending cut doesn't call for significant cutbacks at Pease, according to Hutchinson. It also doesn't take away funding from production of the KC-46A, which has been flagged as a priority by the Air Force.

However, another 10-year spending cut, which will lop off $500 to $600 billion more, will take effect in January, unless legislators reach compromise on a bill to avoid the so-called "sequestration" cuts.

Last year, Congress tried and failed to come up with a plan to slash $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit. The failure means budget cuts hard-wired into the Budget Control Act passed last year are on target to hit the military in 10 months. If the sequestration cuts go in effect, nearly all military programs will be subject to reductions, military officials say.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has advocated for Congress to authorize two rounds of base closures, one in 2013 and another in 2015, to help absorb the defense cuts.

However, following developments at a meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support on Wednesday, the chance of Congress authorizing a new round of base closures next year appears slim.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, said on Wednesday she'll block any attempt to initiate a closure study next year, according to multiple published reports. The Senate committee and another in the House must give their consent to start the base closure process.

Several senators have expressed opposition to new BRAC rounds, including those with bases to protect back home. Shaheen, a member of the subcommittee, said there are unanswered questions about how much money the process would save. The last BRAC round required a large investment up front to smooth the transition, and it's unclear when savings would materialize. The Senate is also awaiting information from the Department of Defense about potential base closures in Europe.

"I think there has been real skepticism and opposition expressed at the armed services committee of the Senate about another round of BRAC so soon," Shaheen said.

The Air Force's long-term plans call for the KC-135 to remain in service for up to another 20 years, Hutchinson said. That means even if Pease doesn't receive a single KC-46A, it won't be relegated to the back bench right away.

But the base would likely shift its mission in the future. And, while lawmakers have mounted stiff opposition to base closures this year, it's unclear whether the same opposition would exist further down the road. Should a future BRAC round occur, Pease would be in a significantly stronger position to remain open if it's in line to receive KC-46A's, Ayotte said.

"If it's not received in the initial round, it's not, certainly not, dire for Pease," she said, "but I think it's really important that we make the case objectively for why Pease should receive the KC-46A."

Source:  http://www.fosters.com

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