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Valley air base aims high in plan for survival, growth
VIENNA
The reality: The Air Force, including its Reserve Component, is downsizing.
The question: How does the Youngstown Air Reserve Station and its 910th Airlift Wing survive and thrive in economically tough times with the lion’s share of dwindling Air Force resources, including the new $67 million C-130J airlift planes, going to its Active Component?
The plan: “My job is to explain why this little base in a cornfield in Northeast Ohio is militarily important to the defense of the United States,” said Air Force Col. James Dignan, commander of the 910th and the YARS installation.
“To survive, we [YARS and the 910th] have to stay viable and prepared to fly the next mission wherever it takes us,” Dignan said.
To accomplish that, Dignan and the YARS community have to wage a campaign to demonstrate the air base’s military value and the 910th to the Air Force, the federal government, the YARS community and the taxpayers.
“It is ultimately about the taxpayers. The more efficient we are, the more likely we are to survive,” he said.
One hugely important way to increase monetary and military efficiency would be to replace the 910th’s C-130Hs, built in 1989 and1990 with the new C-130J.
The C-130J, a comprehensive update of the C-130 Hercules, with new engines, flight deck, and other systems, incorporates state-of-the-art technology that cuts in half the manpower needed to fly it, has lower operating and support costs, and provides life-cycle cost savings over earlier C-130 models.
The J model climbs faster and higher, flies farther at a higher cruise speed, takes off and lands in a shorter distance, and its cargo space is larger, according to the Air Force.
At this point, most of the C-130J planes of which the Air Force has taken delivery have gone to its Active Component.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, has introduced language in the Fiscal Year 2016 House Defense Spending Bill giving the Air Force Reserve special-mission units, one of which is the 910th Aerial Spray Squadron, recapitalization priority. New equipment, such as the C-130J, are part of recapitalization.
Other Reserve Component special-mission units are the 403rd Wing at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., which flies C-130Js for aerial reconnaissance; and the 302nd Airlift Wing at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., which flies the old C-130Hs equipped with the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System.
The defense spending bill language introduced by Ryan would, if passed, positively affect the 302nd and the 910th, the Department of Defense’s only large-area, fixed-wing aerial spray capability unit.
Ryan said the language still must pass the House and the Senate and signed by the president. Once that happens, Ryan said he will work with the Air Force on how it plans to implement the language.
“It’s too early to say how this will affect the 910th,” said Ryan, but he said he’s optimistic it will increase its opportunity to grow.
“The new language puts special-mission units such as the 910th’s to the top of the list to get the C-130J if the Air Force should decide to upgrade the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard’s aging fleet of C-130 legacy aircraft,” Dignan said.
The 910th commander said he is going to Capitol Hill soon to meet with Ohio’s delegation of elected officials, as well as those of other states, to remind them of the value of the Reserve Component in general and YARS in particular.
Dignan says the Reserve Component and the local air base have significant assets working in their favor.
He said part-time reserve citizen-airmen have the same training as their active-duty counterparts, but also bring skills from their civilian jobs to their Air Force assignments.
The Reserve Component has the ability to surge (increase in size) more quickly to meet demand than does the Active Component. The mandate is to be available for deployment within 72 hours after being notified, and it has proven its ability to meet that requirement time and time again, Dignan said.
The 910th has the same experience. Its personnel deployed overseas in the first Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan working alongside Active Component airmen in the same environment with the same equipment, Dignan said.
Also, YARS has adequate infrastructure to increase its complement of planes to 16 aircraft. It has uncongested air space and the only 5,000-foot assault runway for training with night-vision goggles within 500 miles, Dignan said.
On the downside, the linchpins for long-term survival appear to be either updating critical flight navigation and communication components on the C-130H or upgrading to the C-130J.
Also, unless major updates are made by 2020 to meet Federal Aviation Administration and international airspace regulatory constraints, the C-130 Legacy aircraft will be largely inoperable, Dignan said.
In addition, the Air Force’s program to modernize the C-130H’s technology has been put on hold.
Dignan said, however, the Ohio congressional delegation has introduced a bill to allow a less-costly means of modernizing the aging aircraft.
The funding to do the upgrades, however, may not be available in time to meet the constraint deadlines, meaning unless there is a waiver of requirements, the C-130H would not be able to fly in certain restricted airspace, including the East Coast of the U.S. by the end of the decade, he said.
“The soonest the updates could occur is 2017 should money become available,” Dignan said. “We need to be fully compliant by 2020, with some of the new airspace requirements going into effect in 2016. Either recapitalization, that is C-130Js, or upgrades need to happen in the near future to keep us mission ready.”
In order for YARS and the 910th Airlift Wing to be relevant and efficient, it needs to be at the forefront in all ways, he said.
“I know the Air Force needs to get smaller. But, it needs to happen in a smarter way. We need to show how YARS and the 910th fit into the smart plan,” Dignan said.