Under the Pentagon’s base closure and realignment proposal released in May, Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville would lose most of its flying operations and become essentially an extension of neighboring Ft. Bragg. The move would come despite the Air Force’s own calculations that Pope is among the best bases, if not the best base, in the country for the aircraft based there.
The Air Force currently bases two squadrons of C-130E transport planes and two squadrons of A-10 ground-attack aircraft at Pope.
At the core of the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) process is “military value,” how useful a base is. The Pentagon calculates military value using objective measures. The Air Force rated and ranked each of its 154 domestic installations separately on their ability to support eight mission types: fighter, bomber, tanker, airlift (transport planes), unmanned aerial vehicle, C2ISR (command and control-intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), special operations-combat search and rescue, and space operations. The special operations-combat search and rescue category includes A-10 ground-attack missions.
The ratings considered numerous factors that captured a facility’s ability to handle current and future missions, condition of infrastructure, capacity to support contingency, mobilization and future forces, and cost of operations and manpower. Several different factors were considered in each subcategory.
Often an installation was near the top in military value in several different mission types. Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, for example, has the highest rating of all 154 installations for fighter aircraft. It also is tops for bombers and UAVs, second for airlift, fourth for special operations, 21st for C2SIR and 25th for tankers. Air bases, even very highly rated ones such as Seymour Johnson, typically don’t have units of more than one or two types; as a result, many units even after this base closing round would be based at fields with somewhat lower military value. A wing of F-15E fighters and a reserve unit of KC-135R tankers are based at Seymour Johnson, and the BRAC recommendation does not envision the base gaining additional roles.
Pope Air Force Base, like Seymour Johnson, is highly ranked. For special operations-combat search and rescue, Pope is tops of all 154 Air Force installations in the country. In the airlift mission, Pope ranks sixth, and rates ahead of the two other active-duty C-130 airlift bases and all Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve C-130 stations.
Under the proposal the Pentagon has submitted to a special independent committee for review, all active duty C-130s would be based in Little Rock, Ark. Little Rock Air Force Base ranked 17th for airlift. Pope’s A-10s would move to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Moody was ranked 11th in special operations-combat search and rescue.
Fayetteville would just about break even in jobs, with the losses at Pope and a special- forces unit moving to Florida offset by thousands of troops returning from Europe and two headquarters moving in from Atlanta.
Michael Lowrey is associate editor of Carolina Journal.