THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 1, 1996 TAG: 9604010057
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
There's a fight brewing between the Air Force and Navy that has retired Navy Rear Adm. Philip W. Smith globe-hopping mad.
Seems the Air Force wants to take over the Naval Air Reserves' Fleet Logistics Support Squadrons, claiming it can do the same job - delivering Navy goods and people - better and cheaper.
That's not true, claims Smith, a pilot in World War II and Korea who also flew in the Berlin airlift. He is now a lawyer, retired Delta Airlines pilot and ``father'' of the logistics support wing that has been providing cargo and passenger service to millions of Navy and Marine personnel for more than 20 years.
He's the air reserve's chief advocate.
``Look, the Air Force does a wonderful job with strategic air lift, the big lift,'' said Smith while accompanying one of the transports to Europe recently. ``But when it comes down to having that one black box the Navy needs, or their squadron personnel at a certain place when they need it, then we do the best job.''
Almost all of the Navy's air logistics support is provided by the Navy Air Reserve's Fleet Logistics Support Wing, headquartered in Dallas. Scattered throughout the country, the wing consists of seven squadrons of C-9 transports, four C-130T Hercules squadrons and two C-20G Gulfstream units.
One of the squadrons, VR-56, has been operating out of the Norfolk Naval Air Station since 1975, flying four McDonnell Douglas C-9B ``Skytrain II'' aircraft on round-the-clock missions all over the world.
Using 250 active-duty and selected reserve personnel, VR-56 has flown more than 89,000 accident-free hours and more than 33 million miles, and has carried 1 million passengers and 20,000 tons of cargo.
That represents a single plane staying aloft continuously for more than 10 years and circling the Earth 1,320 times, squadron officials say.
``We've got the world's best Reserve operation right now,'' Smith said. ``The beauty of it is that you pay them when they work. No work, they don't get paid.''
But when they are needed, the Reserves are available seven days a week, 24 hours a day, said Smith, during an interview inside one of the C-9s as it flew toward Europe. The aircraft are manned by a mixture of active-duty and reserve men and women who in civilian life work as commercial airline pilots, bookkeepers, police officers and teachers. They fulfill their two-week annual training requirements on such trips.
This flight was being operated by men and women from VR-59, based in Dallas. It was making a two-week trip into Sigonella, Sicily, where it would then be available for cargo and transport flights into Germany, Bosnia, Spain or wherever there was a need.
Smith was aboard on a fact-finding mission that he hoped would generate enough information to convince Congress that the Air Force's plan to take over the Navy's logistics duties was unwise.
The rift surfaced a year ago when the congressionally chartered Commission on Roles and Missions made recommendations to get rid of redundancies among the services.
One recommendation was the transfer to the Air Force of all of the Navy's Operational Support Aircraft, except the C-9s. That included the Navy's C-130s, C-20s, CT-39s and C-12s.
But Smith claims that in effect it includes the C-9s, since the recommendation gives the Air Force, through its Transportation Command, the scheduling authority and control of the Navy C-9s.
``The Navy is therefore in grave danger of losing its essential organic airlift force,'' Smith wrote in an article that appeared in the January edition of the Naval Reserve Association's magazine.
``The Naval Reserve . . . will lose approximately half of the remaining . .
Smith maintains that the Air Force attempted a similar airlift consolidation in the mid-1970s that was reversed by Congress after studies ``proved conclusively that the Air Force as single manager could not efficiently provide the Navy essential, responsive, short notice, intra-theater air logistics support.''
A two-week test of providing the Navy with weekend airlifts ``was an abysmal embarrassing failure,'' said Smith.
The Navy schedules its airlifts to coincide with ship movements, which frequently are changed because of weather or contingencies, said Smith.
For example, when a carrier returns to Norfolk from a six-month deployment, the Navy's C-9s are lined up to transport the out-of-town squadron personnel to places such as Cecil Field, Fla., or Whidbey Island, Wash., where they are based.
Smith maintains that, if there is a last-minute change in a ship's arrival time, the Air Force's busy airlift schedule could not be altered to accommodate the sailors.
``If they get diverted, those sailors will sit there for a few days,'' he said.
The Navy Reserves, at Smith's encouragement, have been writing their congressmen and senators as civilians - not as military members - to save the Navy's airlift program. ILLUSTRATION: During a refueling stop in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada,
passengers board a Navy C-9 for Norfolk. Retired Navy Rear Adm.
Philip W. Smith, an advocate for keeping such tasks in Navy hands
says in-time availability of Navy craft for such tasks couldn't be
duplicated by the Air Force.
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
by CNB