Flashing yellow light. There is a reason to somewhat worried here. Why, you ask? Simple, the defense budget proposals released yesterday include significant transport plane cuts and flying transport planes is what the Charlotte-based N.C. Air National Guard does. Specifically, the Pentagon is planing on:
• Retiring 27 aging C-5As, resulting in a fleet of modernized 52 C-5Ms and 222 C-17s
• Retiring 65 of the oldest C-130s, resulting in a fleet of 318 C-130s
• Divesting 38 C-27s
And some quotes:
…[W]e are making only marginal reductions in the Army reserve and Army National Guard and no reductions to the Marine Corps Reserve… the Air Force is balancing the size of its reserve and active components, including aircraft and manpower reductions, and adjusting the alignment of missions and installations to sustain the operational Reserve Component for the long term. The Air Force will augment the readiness of their reserves by increasing Active-Reserve Component associations.
Translation: some Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve flying units will be shutting down.
Now let’s look closer. Charlotte is, of course, a C-130 Hercules base. The Air Force proper currently operates about a third of all C-130s in use, with the rest flown by the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve. The typical ANG and AFR C-130 unit has between six and 10 aircraft, with most being at six to eight rather than 10. (The N.C. ANG is on the high side.) So it’s quite easy to image six or eight ANG/AFR C-130 bases being eliminated if unit sizes don’t grow. And in the last base closing round, the Air Force wanted to increase unit size to, in most cases, 12 aircraft, which would have resulted in far fewer ANG and AFR C-130 units. (The base closing commission (BRAC) did not go along.)
There’s some good news though: CLT rated very well in the methodology used to rank AF/ANG/AFR facilities during the last (2005) BRAC round. In fact, for the airlift mission, Charlotte/Douglas International Airport ranked 33rd of all Air Force bases, active duty or reserve component. The only base with a National Guard C-130 unit to rank higher was Little Rock, but that’s also an active-duty Air Force base.
Two important qualifiers: There’s no guarantee that a future BRAC round would use the same measurement to determine a base’s military value, so we might not look quite as good in the future.
And there’s a truth that doesn’t go away: CLT is the second-best C-130 base in North Carolina, behind what is now Pope Army Airfield, which is right next to Ft. Bragg. It’s very, very hard to imagine there not being C-130s at Pope. If the Pentagon cuts enough transport planes, and Charlotte looks a bit more average, the N.C. Air National Guard might simply shift over to Fayetteville.
Now how likely is this? Unlikely, certainly. Impossible? No. Unprecedented? No. The Virginia ANG, which used to have its own F-16s and be based in Richmond, shifted over to Langley AFB a few years back and now provides extra pilots for the active-duty assigned F-22s based there.
29
2012 At 8:57 pm, Danimal Said:
I love the way conservatives are into small government and cutting spending until the topic turns to the defense budget, which is the biggest barrel of pork that exists at all.
Suddenly, we should be “concerned” that Uncle Sam is going to push us away from the pig’s trough…heaven forbid we have to start producing actual useful products instead of unnecessary tools of death…
29
2012 At 10:48 pm, Michael Lowrey Said:
Danimal,
Let’s be clear:
1. I do not consider myself to be a conservative.
2. If BRAC finds national security is enhanced by moving the C-130s elsewhere, I don’t have a problem with that.
3. The time has come to abolish the Air National Guard.
4. At least two versions of the F-35 should be cancelled. Marine Corp aviation is largely narcissistic and wasteful.
5. Leon Panetta has demonstrated with this proposal that he’s incapable of thinking outside of the box to produce coherent reforms.
6. Still want to contend I’m a conservative?
30
2012 At 9:47 am, Danimal Said:
Sorry, I may have jumped to conclusions…I assumed that since you are blogging for a very conservative website that you indeed were conservative yourself.
(Although just because you don’t self-identify as a “conservative” does not necessarily mean it doesn’t describe you. I would have to read more of your posts for sure, and the main reason I started reading this blog was that I knew Tara back in college and somebody told me she was writing here so I’ve mostly been reading her stuff…)
Still, I hold to my basic point that those on the right often disregard our bloated defense budget when talking about “big government”.
30
2012 At 10:33 am, Skyler the Weird Said:
What’s even more amazing is how anti Military Industrial Complex Liberals like Ron Dellums are all for cutting defense spending unless the cuts are in their district. They go to court to keep those jobs from being cut.
Still we need to close Army bases in Europe and Japan, and keep just a small naval, air, and special forces contingent.
30
2012 At 10:40 am, Skyler the Weird Said:
This is a libertarian web site. The military could certainly be downsized by decreasing our committment overseas. Especially now that we are no longer needed to defend the Fulda Gap as its inside a United Germany which could on its own defeat an invasion by Russia. All our presence is doing is propping up the unsustainable spending of Socialist Governments in Europe.
30
2012 At 10:53 am, aclove Said:
The Locke Foundation tends to lean libertarian, Tara Servatius is certainly no libertarian. I’d say that the Meck Deck page is a mixed bag these days when it comes to limited government principles.
Jeff Taylor, on the other hand, was definitely a libertarian and I miss him.