Oklahoma
Oklahoma air guard base tapped as likely armed overwatch schoolhouse
The Air Pressure has tentatively picked Will Rogers Air Nationwide Guard Base, Oklahoma, as its future coaching hub for particular operations airmen studying to fly armed overwatch planes.
If formally chosen, the bottom would change its coaching unit for MC-12 Liberty reconnaissance plane into one which brings collectively Guardsmen and lively obligation airmen on the brand new armed overwatch fleet. The Air Pressure plans to interchange its 13 getting old MC-12s with the OA-1K — which L3Harris and Air Tractor initially marketed because the AT-802U Sky Warden.
“Will Rogers ANGB will obtain 28 AT-802Us and about 80 personnel to assist the mission of the 310th Particular Operations Squadron,” the service mentioned in a Friday press launch. “The squadron will relocate from Cannon Air Pressure Base, New Mexico, to Will Rogers ANGB, creating an lively affiliation with the 185th SOS.”
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First, Rogers should go a assessment of its potential to satisfy the fleet’s operational wants and the way the brand new planes may have an effect on present missions, plus an environmental influence research, earlier than the Air Pressure makes a ultimate resolution. These are slated to run from spring to fall 2023.
“Coaching would require munitions, applicable munitions storage areas, munitions airmen for assist and vary airspace that helps dwell hearth for the OA-1K,” Air Pressure Particular Operations Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Becky Heyse instructed Air Pressure Occasions in November. “Additionally, with each squadron deliberate to obtain a simulator, there may also must be amenities to assist the simulators.”
No different installations are within the working to host the schoolhouse. United States Particular Operations Command boss Gen. Richard Clarke has instructed that an extra 4 operational squadrons of 15 planes could possibly be the precise measurement.
OA-1Ks will change different particular operations platforms because the go-to aircraft for shut air assist, precision strike, and armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in counterterror missions. The navy plans to purchase as many as 75 of the propeller-driven, fixed-wing plane beneath a contract price as much as $3 billion.
The Air Pressure expects to run checks on the airframe till summer season 2024, and have its instructors skilled to show college students by fall 2025. The OA-1K fleet is slated to be absolutely operational in 2029 and make use of almost 200 pilots.
Rachel Cohen joined Air Pressure Occasions as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Pressure Journal, Inside Protection, Inside Well being Coverage, the Frederick Information-Put up (Md.), the Washington Put up, and others.