New Air Force plan cuts base C-130 fleet, staffing

Members of the 314th Airlift Wing take part in a change-of-command ceremony in June at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville. The Air Force wants to cut 16 planes and more than 830 active-duty forces of the 314th and 19th Airlift Wings.

Members of the 314th Airlift Wing take part in a change-of-command ceremony in June at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville. The Air Force wants to cut 16 planes and more than 830 active-duty forces of the 314th and 19th Airlift Wings.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

— A new Air Force plan calls for deep cuts to the active duty force and C-130 cargo plane fleet at Little Rock Air Force Base while continuing to grow reserve forces, reflecting a Pentagon move to meet required spending cuts by shrinking the airlift fleet.

The plan would reduce the overall number of cargo planes in the Air Force inventory and includes cutting 16 planes - the equivalent of one flying squadron - from Little Rock Air Force Base’s 19th Airlift Wing, which deploys to hot spots around the world.

The 19th has continually rotated planes and airmen to Iraq, Afghanistan and their surrounding nations since 2001.

“It’s a concern for us here, without a doubt, with the proposal that was put on the table,” said Col. Brian Robinson, commander of Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville. “We’re concerned about the impact to our airmen, the civilians who work here and their families, and what it means to their futures.”

The Air Force released the force-structure plan in late November as a compromise to an earlier, heavily contested proposal that focused required spending cuts on the Air National Guard. The new plan spreads the cuts more evenly across the nation’s active-duty, Reserve and Guard forces.

The Air Force wants to reduce the active-duty forces of the 19th and 314th Airlift Wings by more than 830 troops in addition to the 16 planes - accounting for about 15 percent of the 5,300 troops and a quarter of the 66 planes currently assigned to the two active-duty wings at the base.

“That number is much broader than just one squadron and cuts across more than one group,” Robinson said of the proposal.

The plan also increases the new Reserve unit by 365 troops and the 189th Airlift Wing of the Air National Guard by more than 150 troops.

Overall, the base would lose about 350 troops, and the combined fleet would decrease from 85 to 73 active-duty, Guard and Reserve planes.

A recent Air Force analysis estimated that the base population has an economic impact of more than $700 million in the region through indirect job growth.

Robinson said he was told by his headquarters, U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command, that the plan is still developing.

“The command is involved in assembling a working group to find what they see as inputs to the way ahead and what the final recommendation needs to be on the C-130 force structure,” he said.

That working group assembles next week and will solidify over the next month the overall future size and basing plan for the C-130 fleet. The group’s recommendation will be based on the current Air Force plan and an additional requirement to keep an unknown mix of 32 C-130s and C-27s above the Air Force’s proposal that was included in the recently passed 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.

“It wasn’t specific about where they had to be, what type they had to be, so that’s what the working group is trying to figure out,” Robinson said.

The requirement to keep additional planes could lessen the blow to Little Rock Air Force Base, but it is far from a guarantee because there are active-duty, Reserve and Guard C-130 units in more than 12 states and at bases in the Pacific and European commands.

“We ought to be pushing hard for those extras to be here,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., whose district includes the base.

“The whole delegation is unified. I’ve not seen any disagreement, even a hint of it, on the delegation on this stuff,” he said.

Arkansas’ congressional delegation had balked at the previous plan because it included big cuts to the Arkansas Air National Guard’s 188th Fighter Wing. Those cuts - reducing personnel and trading A-10 jets for a mission remotely piloting drones - remain in the newest proposal.

“To date, the Air Force has not provided a national security analysis or budgetary justification for their proposed force structure changes. That being said, I will continue to work with the Arkansas delegation and Sens. McCain and Levin to push the Air Force for answers,” Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said Friday, referring to Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Carl Levin, D-Mich.

“As experts in the C-130 flying mission, there’s no question that Little Rock Air Force Base is a tremendous asset to our military, and I intend to keep it that way,” he said.

The delegation wrote a letter Nov. 26, when the current plan was released, to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House armed services committees, noting that the base is home to the largest C-130 fleet in the world, deploys to war zones and humanitarian relief missions and trains all C-130 pilots in the U.S. armed forces and more than 44 allied nations.

“We are also concerned that the Air Force’s proposal could impair the C-130 mission at Little Rock Air Force Base,” the delegation wrote in the letter. “The removal of C-130 aircraft could be detrimental to the future of our airlift capabilities.”

The plan includes some elements that have been in the works for years as the C-130 community transitions from the older C-130H to the C-130J currently rolling of the Lockheed Martin assembly line.

The 314th Airlift Wing, an active-duty unit that trains all C-130 crews, is shifting focus to J-model training as the new Reserve unit takes over H-model training.

But the cuts to the 19th Airlift Wing, which is the expeditionary force with hundreds of airmen and several planes deployed to Afghanistan and other regions, surprised most observers.

The 2013 National Defense Authorization Act lifted bans on such moves to take place.

A House provision that would have required a full review of the C-130 force and future needs before any aircraft could be moved or retired didn’t make it into the final bill signed into law last week.

The law reinstated an avionics upgrade program that had been on hold for a year pending further cuts, as well as required that the Air Force keep 32 more C-130s and C-27s than the current proposal to meet the Army’s requirement of having 40 tactical airlift planes available for quick movement as needed.

“We have been told there are no answers yet on the specifics. Our concern now is to mitigate and manage the concerns of our airmen and civilians who work here and let them know we’re trying to stay engaged now that we’re aware,” Robinson said.

“In all honesty, we’re not exactly sure what it means, either.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/06/2013