Ohio Air National Guard Base in Competition for Jet Facility
April 14, 2016
By: David Patch, Toledo Blade
April 14, 2016
The Ohio Air National Guard base at Toledo Express Airport is one of 18 facilities nationwide that the Air Force will consider for either of two planned F-35A Joint Strike Fighter jet bases within the National Guard system, military officials announced.
“That the 180th is among a select group of Air National Guard units from across the nation being considered to support this critical future mission and operate the next generation of fighter aircraft really speaks to the high regard held for our airmen and their record of sustained excellence,” Maj. Gen. Mark E. Bartman, Ohio adjutant general, said in a statement.
Air Force officials are to evaluate facilities at Toledo Express and other potential bases for operational requirements, impact on missions, infrastructure, and manpower, General Bartman’s office said.
Based on that review, which will include cost estimates for housing and maintaining the F-35A, the Air Force will identify candidate installations this summer before selecting primary and alternate sites. Environmental-impact analyses will be conducted later this year, according to the statement.
The F35 is promoted by the Air Force as the nation’s new front-line defense aircraft. It intends to deploy more than 2,400 nationwide, with those assigned to Air National Guard bases scheduled for delivery in 2022 or 2023.
But its 12-figure developmental cost overruns have made the F35 program controversial, and critics contend the plane has design flaws.
Along with Toledo, air-guard bases in suburban Detroit and in Fort Wayne, Ind., are among those under consideration as F-35A homes.
For leaders who have promoted the 180th as a home for the fighter, what’s at stake is ensuring the air-guard base’s continuing operation.
Wendy Gramza, executive director of the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce, said she did not expect getting the F-35A would significantly expand the base, which directly employs 1,041 people, including 473 full-time staff, and has an estimated $113.5 million annual impact on the Toledo area’s economy.
“Any time your base has the newest equipment or aircraft, it puts you in a good position,” Ms. Gramza said.
A Feb. 1 letter four members of Ohio’s Congressional delegation sent to Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James touted the 180th’s “strategic location in the northern Midwest” and its pilots’ domestic and overseas training and performance as evidence in support of its selection.
The offices of U.S. Sens. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) and Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) issued statements Wednesday reiterating the importance of the 180th’s performance record, location, and community support, and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) noted that Toledo Express and the base’s physical plant also have been continually upgraded over the past three decades to support the military mission.
“It’s a base on the grow with an outstanding rating within the Department of Defense,” said Miss Kaptur, a member of the House of Representatives subcommittee for defense appropriation.
The 180th has flown F-16 fighter jets, the Air Force’s current premier fighters, since the early 1990s. Among its responses was a rapid scramble on Sept. 11, 2001, to potentially intercept United Airlines Flight 93 after it and three other transcontinental flights were hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists. Flight 93 crashed in central Pennsylvania after passengers attacked the hijackers.
Pilots, mechanics, and support personnel from the 180th have been deployed to the Middle East since then in support of Air Force missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.