“We’ve made some hard choices,” Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force’s chief of staff, said in an accompanying statement. “The force structure announcement reflects our best effort to meet the expanding Air Force mission areas and growing joint demands.”
Wright-Patterson’s new positions would include financial management specialists, logistics specialists and program managers, base spokesman Daryl Mayer said.
Any changes Congress makes to President Obama’s proposed defense budget for fiscal 2010 could affect the Air Force’s plan. Required environmental analyses must be done before the realignment is put into effect, the Air Force said.
Under the plan, the Air Force Materiel Command, Aeronautical Systems Center, Air Force Recruiting Service, 591st Supply Chain Management Group would receive additional personnel.
The 445th Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve unit that flies the C-5 Galaxy transport planes based at Wright-Patterson, would see a decrease of 12 full-time authorized military positions and a drop of two Air Reserve technicians.
At Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport, the 178th Communications Flight of the Ohio Air National Guard would lose three part-time military (drill) positions.
The Air Force noted that the 162nd Fighter Squadron, also at Springfield-Beckley airport, is losing 12 authorizations for F-16 fighter planes as a result of decisions made during the 2005 round of the nation’s base realignment and closure (BRAC) evaluations.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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