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Hanscom probably won't get closed. It's a major development base with access to all the academic institutes in the Boston area. Plus it hosts Guard, Reserve, and AD forces. It's the poster child for "Total Force"
Cannon AFB has dodged the BRAC bullet everytime. Last time it was slated to close, it was reprieved as a SOF base in the desert (which actually makes a lot of sense). It's mission could get moved to Edwards or Nellis.
Goodfellow definitely needs to go, as well as Laughlin and/or Sheppard. Too many AETC bases in the same area with overlapping missions. Same for Columbus and Keesler.
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Oh how I pray God is hearing you. Knowing how the AF is they'll probably close Sheppard and keep this craphole Laughlin open. The real AF motto, we ain't happy til no one's happy!
Cannon is not going to get closed soon. they just moved the whole AFSOC operation there pretty much. Real kick in the junk for the Florida transplants. It used to be that AFSOC guys could at least bank on having their families enjoy some civilization conveniences while they were gone all the time. Now they'll be gone all the time and their families can suck dirt too while they're gone. I don't have fingers left when counting people who 7-day opted out of the Air force when the Cannon PCS hit.
Again, I'm rooting for Laughlin to get axed. This town needs to wither and die already. The only thing keeping this mirage in the desert alive is the federal spending. This mission could be accomplished in San Antonio. Furthermore, Sheppard is NOT just a pilot training base. Sheppard has a HUGE wing dedicated to enlisted technical training in aircraft maintenance. So they have a much bigger utilitarian value to the Air force than the redundancy of 5 pilot training bases. Vance, Columbus and Laughlin are carbon copies of each other. Any three of them could be eliminated. Knowning the Air Force, they would eliminate the more attractive ones (i.e. axe Vance which is commutable from Oklahoma City and has better schools, over eliminating poverty-stricken-Columbus or straight-up-Mexico-Laughlin).
It's all about who has bigger Congressional pull. For some reason these freggin' nowhere town bases always get the shield. The detrimental effect of these locations to household morale is so palpably quantifiable and as has been highlighted before, bear no substantive value-added to the ability to execute the mission over staging said garrison in more life-desirable locations. UAVs to Cannon. a remote controlled aircraft. Really? You couldn't put those people in Tampa after yanking them out of the cockpit too? Et al ad nauseam. We are federal wealth transfer instruments. Our job performance is really secondary to that goal. I digress.
I knew an IP at Laughlin who would switch to fluent Spanish when his student would stray into Mexican airspace. Then he'd have them wear a sombrero for their debrief
As for the USAF and BRAC, whatever does come, you can rest assure it will make absolutely no sense and be executed in the most half-assed manner possible. I love the USAF, we put the "dys" in "dysfunction".
Sheppard has a HUGE wing dedicated to enlisted technical training in aircraft maintenance. So they have a much bigger utilitarian value to the Air force than the redundancy of 5 pilot training bases. Vance, Columbus and Laughlin are carbon copies of each other. Any three of them could be eliminated.
Just a couple of comments -- Randolph is used for training undergraduate pilot training instructors. Could it handle additional aircraft movements??? Who knows. Sheppard does not just handle USAF training, it is the joint undergraduate training base for NATO fighter pilot candidates. Probably couldn't handle workload from the other UPT bases. That leaves Vance, Columbus and Laughlin as UPT bases. They handle a TREMENDOUS volume of takeoffs/landings each day. I believe that Columbus is classified as the busiest airfield in the world, based on the numbers of aircraft movements. I would expect UPT production to go down significantly (25% ??) in the next 5 years as the number of USAF aircraft is decreased. Bad news for one of the three.
The last BRAC envisioned HUGE joint bases where all missions, including UPT training, would be accomplished. Whoever came up with that concept (probably some O-6 bean counter) was seriously underinformed. Not sure how you would integrate UPT flying in with heavy jet movements, given wake turbulence separation requirements. I think that UPT bases will still have to exist, just because of the nature of the beast.
Having spent many years in the AF, and being familiar with most of the bases and missions, the following could be likely candidates, as their missions could easily be incorporated into similar CONUS bases:
Cannon AFB, NM (high field elevation limits aircraft takeoff performance)
Beale AFB, CA (just not enough going on there to justify keeping it open)
Ellsworth AFB, SD (Move all Bones to Dyess)
Vance AFB, OK (There will be excess pilot training capacity in a few years)
Laughlin AFB, TX (either Vance or Laughlin could be closed, but not both)
Goodfellow AFB, TX (why have an AF base without a runway?? Easy to move the mission elsewhere)
Moody AFB, GA (just a gut feeling)
Grand Forks AFB, ND (was supposed to have been closed in the last BRAC, but didn't happen)
Arnold AFB, TN (another base with no runway; research function could move to Edwards, Eglin, or Wright-Patterson)
I think the above noted bases are all logical choices; but, then again, who ever accused a BRAC of using air-tight logic??? lol
Some folks mentioned Eglin, Sheppard and Keesler. None of those bases will ever close. Eglin is a huge research center with way too much infrastructure to move elsewhere. Sheppard and Keesler are the AF's technical training centers, again with too much infrastructure to easily consolidate.
I honestly don't have an opinion about Hanscom. Back in the day, prior to the McPeak reorganization, it was the home of ESD, the Electronic Systems Division; I assume that function is still there. My BRAC list is just a guess of the bases I would consider to be the "low-hanging fruit". Consolidation of research functions seems logical to me unless moving infrastructure would be cost-prohibitive.
Apparently, based on recent statements of Secretary Panetta, everyone can now breathe a sigh of relief until the 2015 BRAC. Oh, but wait, sequestration is gonna slam us ALL to the mat come 2 Jan 13.
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