Wichita Falls Times Record News - Cornyn Pushing for Jet Missions at SAFB

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Wichita Falls Times Record News - Cornyn Pushing for Jet Missions at SAFB

By: Trish Choate

A Texas senator is spearheading efforts to win new fighter-jet missions for Sheppard Air Force Base.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn put on his Sheppard salesman's hat and urged a top military official to choose Sheppard for all F-35 Joint Strike Fighter maintenance and pilot training - and whatever else might be in the offing.

"The base is ready and willing to take on emerging Air Force training missions," Cornyn, R-Texas, wrote in a letter.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Wichita Falls' congressman, U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, also signed the letter sent late last week to Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley.

Lawmakers hope to help fill a void. The base is losing students and permanent manpower because of the last round of base realignment and closure.

To prove his case for Sheppard, Cornyn noted the Air Force plans to locate maintenance and technical training for the new jet at more than one location.

"Consolidation of this entire training program at a single installation - Sheppard AFB - would offer numerous benefits, including reduced costs," he said.

The base already performs extensive aircraft maintenance training, and Thornberry, R-Clarendon, has long reasoned that adding a mission to train technicians for the $44 million F-35 makes sense.

The two main types of aircraft technicians, flight line and aviation electronics, receive initial instruction for all Air Force aircraft at Sheppard.

Eglin Air Force Base in Florida has been tapped to school F-35 pilots and maintenance technicians for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, according to the Air Force. Besides the three U.S. military branches, nine countries have ordered the new aircraft. Their pilots are to train at Eglin, too.
But that plan is not set in stone.

Besides the fighter plane's maintenance instruction, Sheppard would be the ideal location for international F-35 flight training for U.S. pilots and allies, Cornyn said in the letter.

Lawmakers requested the Air Force include F-35 pilot training for European and NATO aviators in the next agreement for Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training at Sheppard.

The base already has expertise and experience in training international pilots since it's home to the ENJJPT program, the letter said.

Sheppard has been training ENJJPT pilots since 1981. The latest memorandum of understanding extends the training at Sheppard until 2016.

Also, the base might receive $11.6 million to build a 44,143 square-foot ENJJPT Operations Complex. If Congress approves funding, the project will consolidate 80th Flying Training Wing school operations into one up-to-date facility.

The new facility will pave the way for ENJJPT to take on a broader mission and train F-35 pilots, Cornyn said.

Hutchison has taken the case for F-35 training at Sheppard to the Air Force chief of staff.

When Gen. Norton A. Schwartz was in her office recently, she pressed him on the potential for expanding Sheppard's role to include F-35 missions, Hutchison said in a statement.

"I will continue to make this case to the Pentagon," she said.

Sheppard could also be home to training missions related to irregular or guerrilla warfare, unmanned aerial systems maintenance, noncommissioned officer education and cyber warfare, Cornyn wrote in the letter.

This latest push for the base comes not long after it lost a cyber-security training mission to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. Military officials decided Keesler would retain the training, to be expanded in the future.

Decisions dating back to 2005 have led to lawmakers and local officials campaigning for new initiatives at Sheppard.

That year, base realignment commissioners decided military medical training should consolidate. They determined basic medical training should move from Sheppard to the San Antonio area.

As a result, the base is losing more than 2,200 students, more than 500 permanent military positions and 85 civilian positions to Fort Sam Houston by Sept. 15, 2011, officials have estimated.

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