BRAC Rumors - F-16 Units

Does anyone have an inside track on what ANG or Active Duty F-16 units will be closed once the Brac list is announced? I know some rumors are flying around but do you think ANG Viper units will get block 40 or 50 hardware from an active duty unit if they close? Will ANG units receive more hardware on their ramp if they are not closed?

Thoughts anyone?

[edit: just realised I sounded really arrogant in what I posted, and didnt mean it that way, so.... nvm....]

-Aaron

No one has the inside track on the BRAC unless they work for Donald Rumsfeld. The official list will be released on Friday at 0915 EST.

Supposedly the ANG F-16 units that stay will plus up to 24 PAA from 15 PAA.

God, I hope we don't get block 40-50s they are beat up and I don't think the quality was put into them as when general dynamics was putting them together. the block 30's are the Cadillacs of the 16 fleet IMHO. any crew dog that's worked on all of them will attest to that.

didn't I hear that commanders are privy 24 hours prior? if so start looking for leaks anytime now ( that might be bad info) but I did notice a FOR SALE sign on my commanders lawn this morning ....hhmmmm?

Here's the Air Force Component.

Air Force base closures and realignments include:

Altus AFB, Oklahoma
Beale AFB, California
Brooks AFB, Texas
Cannon AFB, New Mexico
Columbus AFB, Mississippi
Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota
Goodfellow AFB, Texas
Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota
Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts
Kirtland AFB, New Mexico
Los Angeles AFB, California
McConnell AFB, Kansas
Nellis AFB, Nevada (to realign)
Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina (to realign) Shaw AFB, South Carolina Vance AFB, Oklahoma

The Air Force will lose 2,260 military and 2,839 civilian manpower positions, and 1,055 reserve drill authorizations next year, according to the 2004 force-structure announcement released July 23. Many bases, both active duty and reserve component, are affected by the realignment. In many cases, units will gain aircraft and missions, while others will pare down.

Besides manpower reductions, the realignment formally announces the
>retirement of the C-9A Nightingale and KC-135E Stratotanker aircraft.

According to Air Force officials, the 20 C-9s are being retired because of reduced-patient movement, range limitations and increasing maintenance and upgrade costs. The aeromedical-evacuation mission will become a requirements-based system using all passenger-capable aircraft.


The service will retire 44 of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command's 43-year-old KC-135Es next year, replacing them with 24 KC-135Rs from the active-duty fleet. By the end of fiscal 2006, the Air Force will have retired 68 of the KC-135Es.

K+9 wrote:Didn't I hear that commanders are privy 24 hours prior? if so start looking for leaks anytime now ( that might be bad info) but I did notice a FOR SALE sign on my commanders lawn this morning ....hhmmmm?

Back in '88 or so, the day after the Tampa Tribune had a front page story about MacDill possibly closing, someone placed a Century 21 'For Sale' sign (one of the large commercial ones) in front of the Wing HQ. It was still there when the General arrived in the morning. There seemed to be a total lack of humor about the entire episode up at Wing, even worse than when the many wayward pink yard flamingos appeared on that same lawn several weeks earlier...

Mike

PS - I have no idea where the sign came from, although a post hole digger may have been borrowed from the AGS dorm...

We hung a for sale sign on one of our jets that was broke the whole time we were TDY to Zaragoza in 98. The brass did not find it funny at all, especially when there was a group of Spanish AF guys looking at the sign, laughing. So we replaced the sign with a hydraulic bucket filled it with grass and hung it on the pitot probe to feed the pig. Again, they didn't think it was funny.....I guess some people just have no sense of humor.

O.T.

We put a "for sale" in one of our pigs through an airshow. No takers, much to our disappointment :-/ Did see a C-130 parked there with one of those "Mastercard/Amex/Visa Accepted Here" stickers in the window, that was pretty good

So Beale is going to close? That's very surprising, seeing as they are the home of U-2 ops. This comes, even when I had heard rumors that they would gain Predators.

I can't honestly say that I'm sorry to see a few of those bases go...Let's just say that there are now a few less cold weather and/or $hithole assignments that people will have to worry about.

Hey, why not Minot? No, seriously, the BUFF fleet is small enough now, that they could move their mission to Barksdale, and have a BUFF super-wing, much like what the B-1 mission at Dyess is becoming.

Surprises me to see L.A. close. Of course, I guess they could get away with moving L.A.'s assets to Edwards or Vandenberg.

Does anyone know what the realignments of Nellis, Seymour, and Shaw include?

Man, if someone had told me a couple years ago that Shaw was facing a BRAC, I'd have told them they were insane.

Then again, I didn't think Homestead and MacDill would buy it on the same BRAC either...

To err is human, to forgive is not USAF policy...

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

TC wrote:Hey, why not Minot? No, seriously, the BUFF fleet is small enough now, that they could move their mission to Barksdale, and have a BUFF super-wing, much like what the B-1 mission at Dyess is becoming.

An old Cold War strategy perhaps? Not havin' all your eggs in one basket? Hypothetically speakin', a sub-launched ICBM fired from mid-Gulf of MayHeeKo will get to Barksdale long before gettin' to Minot, whereas an ICBM launched over the pole will hopefully get detected early enough to flush Minot's BUFFs before the base gets shwacked. Same goes for Whiteman to certain degree (I believe at least 2 B-2s are forward-deployed at any given time). Could be why at least some of the manned bombers will continue to roost in the heartland.

There was a rumor on the news tonight Springfiled, OH Air Guard Base (who operates F-16's) is in heavy danger of closing.

-Aaron

Ouch! Hoping really hard that's not the case. I've got some old acquaintances at the sim shop there and would hate to see 'em have to pack up and move again. The wing converted to an RTU in '99 along with Kelly but I haven't heard any info about Springfield's training load or whether the extra capacity is still needed. Hell...they may just move over to Wright-Patt for all I know.

The list here is wrong.