thedrifter
12-05-06, 03:29 PM
December 11, 2006
Whither the Hornets?
Finding a new home for Oceana’s fighter jets is no small problem
By Trista Talton
Staff writer
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Virginia Beach, Va., couldn’t keep them. Jacksonville, Fla., doesn’t want them.
But lawmakers and lobbyists from Texas to the East Coast — including the Carolinas, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle — are making the case to become the next home for 250 Virginia-based F/A-18 Hornets and about 30,000 Seabees.
The jets are based at Naval Air Station Oceana, near Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. The issue began when the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission decided that the towns needed to pass laws to keep development from encroaching on military operations at Oceana. The plan was, if the towns didn’t pass the laws, the jets would move to Cecil Field, a naval air station that closed in 1999 near Jacksonville, Fla.
The Defense Department inspector general ruled that the towns near Oceana didn’t do enough to prevent further encroachment, and to make matters more complicated, the city of Jacksonville voted in November against moving jets to Cecil Field.
Retired Adm. Robert Natter, a consultant for military affairs with the Florida governor’s office, said Gov. Jeb Bush will not overturn the vote.
“The governor’s stance on this has been that he will always support the decision and desires of the city,” Natter said.
Moving forward, all officials will say is that the Defense Department inspector general will decide the next step in the process. Officials have not said if there’s a possibility that the jets will stay in Virginia.
“There is no other direction to what will happen,” said Jill Votaw, with the Navy’s BRAC office in San Diego.
In the meantime, lobbyists are talking up installations in their states, including two East Coast Marine air stations, saying their particular installations should get the jets.
“I believe Beaufort could handle the Navy’s jets,” Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said. “I would be surprised if it’s all 250 jets because of the requirement of infrastructure where it goes. I would be happily surprised if we got all of them.”
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., already has two Navy F/A-18 fighter squadrons and another seven Marine Hornet squadrons. Under an old proposal, formulated when the Navy was looking for an East Coast practice field, those Marine squadrons would be sent to MCAS Cherry Point, N.C., while Oceana’s Navy jets would move to Beaufort.
Wilson said MCAS Beaufort would need another runway and a number of buildings to support inventory and personnel at the East Coast’s master jet base. He’s identified an Army airfield where Navy pilots could practice carrier landings and takeoffs. The airfield is near the town of North, which is a little more than 100 miles north of Beaufort.
“I would really hope this would be looked at as a site,” he said. “This is an alternate site for a shuttle landing already.”
And, he said, he has found almost universal support from residents in that area.
That’s not quite the case for residents in Washington County, N.C., the Navy’s pick for an outlying landing field north of Cherry Point. Environmentalists and residents fought the proposal in court.
The Navy has written a supplemental environmental impact statement, which is expected to be released early next year.
“I think that there’s going to be an outlying landing field built in eastern North Carolina,” said Hugh Overholt, a consultant with Allies for Cherry Point’s Tomorrow. “We’ll just have to see how the EIS comes out. You could possibly have some more litigation.”
He said the group hopes to get at least a couple of Oceana’s Navy squadrons at Cherry Point.
“We have the capacity to take those planes here,” he said. “We would welcome them.”
Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., proposed moving Oceana’s jets to Beaufort and Beaufort’s Marine F/A-18s to Cherry Point last year.
In a letter to Anthony Principi, BRAC chairman, Jones wrote, “Most of the proposals, such as moving NAS Oceana jets to Georgia or Texas, are impractical and wasteful of our tax dollars.”
Jones wrote that his proposal would take advantage of Beaufort’s proximity to the fleet. The Navy jets would be close to Mayport, Fla., a Navy base. Further, he wrote, it would turn Cherry Point into the Corps’ master jet base.
B.J. Penn, assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and environment, responded to Jones, saying that while the final decision rests in the hands of the inspector general, he could confirm the Navy’s plans to place two F/A-18 Super Hornet squadrons at Cherry Point in 2009.
Richard Eckstrom, South Carolina’s comptroller and co-chairman of the state’s Military Base Task Force, said officials in both states should be talking.
“[Beaufort] currently wouldn’t be a perfect fit in terms of being able to take the 250 jets,” he said. “Although we feel that there’s potential for developing. The military has a lot more flexibility to operate over the Atlantic Ocean. This is the sort of move that I think would make sense if regions worked together to try to accommodate the additional assets that would be freed up once Oceana isn’t available. For a defense point of view, it seems that the military should be looking to split up those assets on the East Coast.”
Ellie
Whither the Hornets?
Finding a new home for Oceana’s fighter jets is no small problem
By Trista Talton
Staff writer
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Virginia Beach, Va., couldn’t keep them. Jacksonville, Fla., doesn’t want them.
But lawmakers and lobbyists from Texas to the East Coast — including the Carolinas, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle — are making the case to become the next home for 250 Virginia-based F/A-18 Hornets and about 30,000 Seabees.
The jets are based at Naval Air Station Oceana, near Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. The issue began when the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission decided that the towns needed to pass laws to keep development from encroaching on military operations at Oceana. The plan was, if the towns didn’t pass the laws, the jets would move to Cecil Field, a naval air station that closed in 1999 near Jacksonville, Fla.
The Defense Department inspector general ruled that the towns near Oceana didn’t do enough to prevent further encroachment, and to make matters more complicated, the city of Jacksonville voted in November against moving jets to Cecil Field.
Retired Adm. Robert Natter, a consultant for military affairs with the Florida governor’s office, said Gov. Jeb Bush will not overturn the vote.
“The governor’s stance on this has been that he will always support the decision and desires of the city,” Natter said.
Moving forward, all officials will say is that the Defense Department inspector general will decide the next step in the process. Officials have not said if there’s a possibility that the jets will stay in Virginia.
“There is no other direction to what will happen,” said Jill Votaw, with the Navy’s BRAC office in San Diego.
In the meantime, lobbyists are talking up installations in their states, including two East Coast Marine air stations, saying their particular installations should get the jets.
“I believe Beaufort could handle the Navy’s jets,” Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said. “I would be surprised if it’s all 250 jets because of the requirement of infrastructure where it goes. I would be happily surprised if we got all of them.”
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., already has two Navy F/A-18 fighter squadrons and another seven Marine Hornet squadrons. Under an old proposal, formulated when the Navy was looking for an East Coast practice field, those Marine squadrons would be sent to MCAS Cherry Point, N.C., while Oceana’s Navy jets would move to Beaufort.
Wilson said MCAS Beaufort would need another runway and a number of buildings to support inventory and personnel at the East Coast’s master jet base. He’s identified an Army airfield where Navy pilots could practice carrier landings and takeoffs. The airfield is near the town of North, which is a little more than 100 miles north of Beaufort.
“I would really hope this would be looked at as a site,” he said. “This is an alternate site for a shuttle landing already.”
And, he said, he has found almost universal support from residents in that area.
That’s not quite the case for residents in Washington County, N.C., the Navy’s pick for an outlying landing field north of Cherry Point. Environmentalists and residents fought the proposal in court.
The Navy has written a supplemental environmental impact statement, which is expected to be released early next year.
“I think that there’s going to be an outlying landing field built in eastern North Carolina,” said Hugh Overholt, a consultant with Allies for Cherry Point’s Tomorrow. “We’ll just have to see how the EIS comes out. You could possibly have some more litigation.”
He said the group hopes to get at least a couple of Oceana’s Navy squadrons at Cherry Point.
“We have the capacity to take those planes here,” he said. “We would welcome them.”
Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., proposed moving Oceana’s jets to Beaufort and Beaufort’s Marine F/A-18s to Cherry Point last year.
In a letter to Anthony Principi, BRAC chairman, Jones wrote, “Most of the proposals, such as moving NAS Oceana jets to Georgia or Texas, are impractical and wasteful of our tax dollars.”
Jones wrote that his proposal would take advantage of Beaufort’s proximity to the fleet. The Navy jets would be close to Mayport, Fla., a Navy base. Further, he wrote, it would turn Cherry Point into the Corps’ master jet base.
B.J. Penn, assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and environment, responded to Jones, saying that while the final decision rests in the hands of the inspector general, he could confirm the Navy’s plans to place two F/A-18 Super Hornet squadrons at Cherry Point in 2009.
Richard Eckstrom, South Carolina’s comptroller and co-chairman of the state’s Military Base Task Force, said officials in both states should be talking.
“[Beaufort] currently wouldn’t be a perfect fit in terms of being able to take the 250 jets,” he said. “Although we feel that there’s potential for developing. The military has a lot more flexibility to operate over the Atlantic Ocean. This is the sort of move that I think would make sense if regions worked together to try to accommodate the additional assets that would be freed up once Oceana isn’t available. For a defense point of view, it seems that the military should be looking to split up those assets on the East Coast.”
Ellie