THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230347
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
Threatened with closure just two years ago and still regarded as a possible target, Oceana Naval Air Station instead may be about to solidify its position as the Navy's premier East Coast jet base.
Congressional and defense sources said Wednesday that Navy Secretary John H. Dalton wants to make the Virginia Beach installation the home of all U.S.-based F-14 Tomcats - probably about 150 planes when the move is complete - along with more than 160 F/A-18 Hornets, the Navy's premier warplane.
Dalton's proposal, the sources said, is part of a package of Navy recommendations to Defense Secretary William F. Perry for 1995 base closures and realignments.
Perry is weighing restructuring plans submitted by all the services and is to announce his own recommendations Tuesday. The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission will review those proposals and make final recommendations to President Clinton and Congress by July 1.
If adopted, the Navy's new plan would reverse a series of decisions made by the service and the 1993 base-closing commission. The shifts would benefit Oceana at the expense of the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, N.C., and Lemoore Naval Air Station in California.
The 1993 base-closing commission ordered most East Coast-based F/A-18s - along with their 5,000 Navy personnel - to Cherry Point. Their current home, Cecil Field near Jacksonville, Fla., is to close by 1999. The same commission directed about half the F-14s remaining in service to Lemoore, with the balance at Oceana.
Under the new plan, Oceana would lose about 50 S-3 Vikings, anti-submarine planes that were to be moved to Virginia Beach with the closure of Cecil Field. Dalton is said to be recommending that those planes and their 1,200 personnel stay in Florida, apparently at the nearby Jacksonville Naval Air Station.
Sources said cost concerns are at the heart of the new proposal. U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican and ex-Navy secretary, had estimated that construction of new facilities needed to serve the F/A-18s at Cherry Point could cost more than $500 million.
The move to Oceana, where essentially all the necessary facilities already are in place, would cost less than $100 million.
And with the Navy's inventory of F-14s dwindling - the jet is scheduled to go out of service in 2015 - the Navy apparently concluded it would realize substantial savings by basing all of them at Oceana as well.
In a letter to Warner on Wednesday, Dalton declined to reveal his recommendations but acknowledged that the Cherry Point cost concerns raised by the senator ``have surfaced independently in our . . . deliberations on our operational air stations.''
Dalton added that the Navy intends ``to take full advantage'' of provisions in the base-closing law that permit it to revisit restructuring decisions made by earlier BRACs.
``I would think it would be a smart move for the Navy,'' said retired Rear Adm. Fred Metz, formerly a top leader of the Navy's air forces. Built to hold more than 450 planes, Oceana has more than enough room to handle both the F-14s and F/A-18s, he said.
During its heyday in the mid-1980s, as the Reagan administration worked toward a 600-ship fleet, Oceana was home to 25 squadrons and more than 300 planes. Today it has about 200 - nine squadrons of F-14s, two squadrons of A-6 Intruder bombers, and one squadron of F/A-18s used in aerial combat training.
Metz is among a squadron of retired military officers and civic leaders who have been working for more than a year to make a case for Hampton Roads-area installations with the 1995 base-closing commission. He praised Rep. Owen B. Pickett for pushing Navy leaders to take another look at Oceana and the 1993 decisions that raised doubts about its future.
Pickett ``opened a lot of people's eyes,'' Metz said.
A Pickett spokesman said Wednesday that the congressman could neither confirm nor deny reports on Dalton's new recommendations. In a breakfast meeting Tuesday with Virginia Beach city council members, Pickett said he is still ``uneasy'' about what Perry might propose next week.
``We fairly well know what the military departments have submitted to the secretary of defense,'' he said. But with those plans now subject to change by Perry, ``it's hard to know what's going on and impossible'' to influence the discussion.
``We continue to hear that the Navy is sticking to their guns. . . They do not want any of their bases here closed.'' MEMO: Staff writer Karen Weintraub contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: Department of Defense color photos of F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18
Hornet
Color graphic with map
KEYWORDS: BASE CLOSURE AND REALIGNMENT COMMISSION BASE CLOSING U.S.
OCEANA NAVAL AIR STATION by CNB