Senior Air Force Official Views Alaska’s Eielson to be Top Pick for F-35 Pacific Squadron

Air ForceBy Military News. Eielson Air Force Base has “phenomenal assets” that make it attractive for basing new F-35 fighter jets, an Air Force official said Wednesday at a public scoping meeting.

“One of the reasons the Air Force is looking at Eielson is there used to be more squadrons assigned at Eielson Air Force Base than we currently have,” said Col. Michael Winkler. “We do have some decent capacity.”

Eielson’s 14,500-foot runway is long enough to land any aircraft in the Air Force, Winkler said. Ramp space can accommodate more than 130 aircraft. The base has good access to energy resources and a large munitions storage facility, he said.

“All of this current capacity has the Air Force thinking that Eielson is the preferred alternative in the Pacific,” Winkler said.

The Air Force considered eight other locations for the first Pacific squadron of high-tech F-35s, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. The Air Force in August announced Eielson as the preferred alternative for the 48 aircraft. (Read more from “Air Force Official Touts Eielson as Best Pick for F-35 Pacific Squadron” HERE)

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Budget Cut Would Hit ‘Every Part’ of Air Force

By Barrie Barber. The return of sequestration would impact “every part” of the Air Force while the service branch has called for an end to downsizing the number of airmen in ranks and pushes to restore readiness and modernize an aging fleet, the service branch’s top civilian leader said.

In an exclusive interview Thursday with the Dayton Daily News, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said sequester-imposed spending caps may cut $10 billion from the budget the Air Force wants.

The secretary toured Wright-Patterson on Thursday and addressed more than 200 Air Force Institute of Technology master’s degree and doctoral graduates and more than 1,000 others gathered at a ceremony at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

“Ten billion is a big chunk of money and it would mean every part of our Air Force would be touched in some way,” she said in an interview. “It’s impossible to predict what that means for Wright-Patterson,” but it could strike programs like advanced engine research and raise the potential for a return of furloughs, she said.

In 2013, thousands of civil service workers were sent home for days at Wright-Patterson because of furloughs officials blamed on sequestration. Without action from Washington, sequestration is due to return in October, the start of the 2016 fiscal year. (Read more from this story HERE)

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