State bases were safe in talks

By Chris Casteel

Published: June 17, 2005

WASHINGTON - Defense Department officials who developed the base closure recommendations briefly considered closing the huge repair depot at Tinker Air Force Base, but quickly decided such a move was a "show stopper" with "unacceptable consequences," according to information released by the Pentagon.

BRAC site
Air Force rates bases by mission

Meanwhile, Vance Air Force Base finished high in the competition to land training for the Joint Strike Fighter, the next-generation fighter plane that will be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marines.

A review of hundreds of documents released by the Pentagon since the list of proposed base closures was announced May 13 reveal no serious discussions about closing any of Oklahoma's active Air Force bases.

The brief look at whether to close the Air Logistics Center the biggest tenant at Tinker did not involve closing the entire base.

In fact, there were numerous scenarios pondered that would have added more work at Tinker, Vance and Altus Air Force Bases. Ultimately, Tinker and Vance were selected to gain more work, while Altus' mission was proposed to remain virtually unchanged.

Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, whose congressional district includes Altus and Vance, said he and his staff have been poring through all the Defense Department documents.

Lucas recalled the anxiety he and those around the bases felt for years as the base closing round approached. He said the documents show fear was unwarranted.

"We were never considered for closing," he said of the documents he has reviewed.

"Contrary to the discussion at the time of my two bases being the weak sisters of the family, we were fine. We were fine."

The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission is reviewing all the Pentagon's proposals; the independent commission must make its own recommendations to President Bush by Sept. 8. In past base closure rounds, an average of 85 percent of the Pentagon's proposals have been adopted.

The review process
The Oklahoma bases were evaluated by various groups of Defense Department officials in the months leading up to the May 13 announcement.

The primary groups looking at Altus and Vance pilot training bases were the Air Force Base Closure Executive Group, made up of top military and civilian Air Force leaders, and a separate group looking at all the military services' education and training operations.

Tinker, which has a repair depot, a refueling wing and Air Force and Navy surveillance planes, was evaluated primarily by the Air Force Base Closure Executive Group and a separate group studying all the services' industrial missions, such as aircraft repair and bomb making.

The group looking at the military's industrial functions sought to consolidate similar operations at fewer bases; it eventually proposed closing or realigning several Army weapons manufacturing plants and depots. The McAlester Army Ammunition Plan could benefit from that proposed consolidation.

Aircraft repair at Air Force and Navy depots also was studied on whether maintenance of similar planes and parts could be combined and consolidated at fewer sites.

The Air Force has three depots called Air Logistics Centers.

Late last year, a maintenance "subgroup" of the group studying military industrial activities examined the feasibility of shutting down the Air Logistic Centers at Tinker and at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah.

At a meeting Nov. 18, the head of the maintenance subgroup reported back to the full industrial group that the two centers were essentially too big to close.

Too much work would have to be shifted elsewhere and too many other repair depots would have to remain open to absorb the work, effectively killing the point of trying to reduce the number of sites. Moreover, closing the big depots would leave the Air Force without enough capability to handle a major surge in activity because of a war or other emergency.

A Defense Department report from the Nov. 18 meeting states, "Closing the Oklahoma ALC (Tinker AFB) depot maintenance activity would require 16 other depots to remain open and require the addition of over 3 million direct labor hours in capacity to accomplish the workload shifted from Tinker AFB to other depots.

"The group decided that, based on these negative impacts and unless other substantive issues surface that require additional analysis, it seemed logical that the closure of the maintenance depots at Hill AFB and Tinker AFB present unacceptable show stoppers and that further analysis of these closure scenarios was not necessary."

Retired Air Force Gen. Richard Burpee, a former commander of Tinker's Air Logistic Center who worked to retain Tinker in the past three base closure rounds, said Thursday, "My worry was not that they would close Tinker Air Force Base. It was that they might take missions away from it."

The Pentagon proposed to move some supply business jobs out of Tinker, but the base would actually gain more planes under the Pentagon's proposals.

In the Pentagon's base closure report released on May 13, Tinker is referred to as a base of "high military value."

Vance fares well The Defense Department decided to use the base closure process to choose a base for initial flight and maintenance training on the Joint Strike Fighter, which is under development and expected to be delivered to the military in about three years.

For various reasons, dozens of bases were eliminated from consideration early on. The base closure group that was studying education and training at all military bases focused on 15 Air Force and Navy bases for the Joint Strike Fighter training.

After data in several categories was analyzed, the group settled on Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

Vance Air Force Base, the only Oklahoma base to make the final cut, finished sixth overall, and fourth among Air Force bases.

Out of a possible 100 cumulative points from the categories on which the bases were judged, Vance scored 70, just fractions of a point behind two other bases and only 4.5 points below Eglin, which was chosen.

Vance's scores in airfield capacity, environment, quality of life and ground training facilities were all in the top five. But it ranked 14th out of 15 in weather. The military wanted a home base where there was three miles of visibility and only high clouds on at least 200 days each year, according to a Pentagon memo on the subject. The desired requirement was 300 days with three miles visibility and only high clouds.

Lucas said he is happy with how Vance fared but isn't going to hold his breath that Vance might emerge the winner after the base closure commission is done with its own review.

"There's some tough competition," he said.