THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 24, 1995 TAG: 9502240030
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
Money talks, and nearly a half-billion bucks shouted that the F/A-18 Hornets - and their 5,000 Navy personnel - belong at Oceana Naval Air Station and not at the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, N.C., as originally proposed.
Navy Secretary John H. Dalton listened and now wants to make Oceana the home of more than 160 Hornets, the Navy's premier warplane, as well as home of all U.S.-based F-14 Tomcats - about 150 planes.
U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican and ex-Navy secretary, estimated that construction of facilities needed to serve the F/A-18s and personnel at Cherry Point would cost more than $500 million, compared with less than $100 million for preparations to move the Hornets to Oceana, a sprawling 6,000-acre base in Virginia Beach built to handle as many as 450 aircraft.
Navy Secretary Dalton wrote Warner on Wednesday that Cherry Point cost concerns raised by the senator also ``have surfaced independently in our . . . deliberations on our operational air stations.''
The Hornets - literally the future of naval aviation - now are assigned to Cecil Field in Jacksonville. The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission recommended in 1993 that Cecil Field be closed and the warplanes be moved to Cherry Point.
The Hornet, a $24 million bomber and air-to-air fighter, is the only Navy tactical jet still in production. Without it, Oceana would cease to be the vaunted East Coast hub of naval aviation, at tremendous cost to Virginia Beach. Oceana's 11,000 employees earn $392 million a year and spend most of it in Hampton Roads.
Regrettably, Oceana is not yet off the hook. Though money always talks, when it's tax money, Washington doesn't always listen.
Dalton's proposals are part of a package the Navy is recommending to Defense Secretary William J. Perry for 1995 base closures and realignments. Perry is to announce his own recommendations Tuesday. Then the base-closing commission will make final recommendations to President Clinton and Congress by July 1.
Dalton's proposal to move all F-14s - including those on the West Coast - to Oceana is good news on top of good news, but the $38 million craft is no longer in production. The whole ballgame is the Hornet.
U.S. Rep. Owen B. Pickett is being praised by retired military officers and civic leaders for his part in getting Navy leaders to take another look at Oceana. And with the stakes so high, Virginia is fortunate to have an ex-Navy secretary like Warner in the U.S. Senate right now. by CNB