THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070416
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 30 lines
A Virginia Beach-based Navy A-6 Intruder bomber squadron, scheduled to disband after its return this summer from deployment on the aircraft carrier George Washington, is getting a new lease on life.
VA-34's crews will go to the Navy's air base at Cecil Field, Fla., near Jacksonville later this year, a Navy spokesman said Wednesday, for training on the F/A-18 Hornet, the successor plane to the Intruder.
The squadron will return to Oceana Naval Air Station in 1997 or 1998 as an F/A-18 unit, the spokesman said. Cecil Field is being closed and its F/A-18 squadrons shifted to Oceana as part of a series of base closings and realignment ordered last year.
The change in plans for the squadron is part of a series of moves outlined in the Navy's 1997 Navy budget proposal. The spending blueprint was released this week.
VA-34 is among two A-6 squadrons and one F-14 squadron that had been slated for disbanding but will be kept intact. Both the A-6 and the F-14 are being removed from service gradually in favor of the F/A-18. by CNB