The Air Force is currently holding a series of public meetings to discuss its plans for Columbus Air Force Base.
For long-time residents, the mere idea of meetings about the future of Columbus Air Force Base are likely to bring lumps to their throats.
What is known as BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure), a process that governs the closure of military installations, threatened the existence of CAFB multiple times over the course of two decades. Five rounds of base closures (1985, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 2005) shuttered some 350 military facilities. In 1992, Columbus Air Force Base escaped that fate by the skin of its teeth and in 2012, a $2 million grant from the Mississippi Development Authority for improvements at CAFB were enough to keep the base off the closure list, a round of closures ultimately canceled by Congress.
Thankfully, we can give a collective sigh of relief. The current meetings are not related to the threat of closure. Rather, it’s a look to the future.
Wednesday, Air Force and CAFB officials held the first public meeting on what’s in store for CAFB, now in its 82nd year of training pilots for the Air Force.
The major components will be updating the fleet of training jets, replacing the base’s T-38C Talon trainers, which had been in use since the 1970s and were beginning to show their age, requiring an enormous amount of maintenance. The Air Force expects to replace CAFBs T-38s, with between 61 and 77 new T-7A Red Hawk jets, which Air Force officials say better prepare their pilots for the technologically-advanced aircraft they will fly after their training ends. The plan also includes 11 new building projects on the base to accommodate the new aircraft. CAFB also intends to begin night training, something it has never done before.
The plan would phase out 85 T-38Cs from 2028 through 2030, and overnight flight missions would begin in 2028 and reach full capacity in 2030, consisting of 595 overnight training missions from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. over the course of the year. The T-7As allow pilots to use night vision goggles, something the old T-38s could not offer.
Whatever inconvenience might be created by night training flights seems a very small thing when weighed against the importance of CAFB’s mission and the long-term sustainability of the base.
The plan suggests that CAFB is going to continue to be a key player in our nation’s military plans well into the next decade and, most likely, well beyond.
It also ensures that the young pilot candidates will have the equipment they need to be the best they can be.
This is good news, not only for the base and its personnel, but for our community. It’s hard to imagine what our community would be like without CAFB. Fortunately, it doesn’t appear that we will have to imagine that for years to come.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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