
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 17, 1991                   TAG: 9104170597
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HAMPTON                                LENGTH: Medium

EAST COAST AIR DEFENSE UNIT TO BE CUT

The 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron's days of scrambling to meet Soviet planes approaching the United States will soon come to an end, a victim of Pentagon budget cuts and the collapse of the Cold War.

The Langley Air Force Base squadron's 18 F-15 Eagle fighters probably will go to Air National Guard or reserve units and its 40 officers, 516 airmen and eight civilian workers will retire or be transferred to other units by October under plans announced Monday by the Air Force.

Responsibility for protecting U.S. airspace along the East Coast will shift to Air National Guard units on a rotating basis, officials said.

"It has to do with the shift of the threat - as President Bush would call it, `the New World Order,' " said Col. Ron Sconyers, a spokesman for the Tactical Air Command, headquartered at Langley.

The 48th, organized in August 1917, has been based at Langley for more than 30 years. It is responsible for coastal defense from central New Jersey to Florida and westward to Texas.

The unit keeps planes on alert around the clock. It was sent to Florida during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and went to Korea in 1968 after North Korea seized the USS Pueblo.

But for the past two years, the unit has seen its mission decline, with fewer Soviet reconnaissance planes attempting to breach U.S. airspace.

The Air Force cuts also will deactivate the 6th Airborne Command and Control Squadron at Langley by late 1992. The squadron flies three EC-135Ps, military versions of Boeing 707s, that carry communication equipment and act as airborne command posts for the U.S. Atlantic Command. The unit has about 250 officers and airmen.

Lt. Col. Thomas L. Sack, Langley's public affairs officer, said it was not known what will happen to those planes or who will get the unit's mission.

"With the inactivation more than a year away, many details are still being worked out," he said. "We don't know yet how the aircraft are going to be disposed."

The cuts announced Monday are in addition to reductions announced in February that will trim 700 military and 230 civilian positions at Langley by 1993. Most of those cuts are expected to come from TAC headquarters and other administrative units on the base.

Langley has about 9,500 military personnel and nearly 3,500 civilian employees. The total cuts will be about 1,500 to the base's military strength and about 250 of its civilians.

The cuts announced so far do not affect the 72 planes and more than 3,000 members of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing at Langley.

by CNB