Montana”s big sky open for jets

HELENA – Montana’s greatest military asset is the very big sky that gives the state its familiar nickname, and Gov. Brian Schweitzer plans to exploit that next week when he meets with Pentagon officials who are preparing their list of proposed base closings.

“Montana has premier air space for air-to-air combat” and other training missions, an attraction that state officials should be able to use in persuading federal officials to place more fighter planes here, Adj. Gen. Randy Mosley, head of the Montana National Guard, told Schweitzer on Monday.

“That is a gem,” he said. “The air space is really the key to the whole thing.”

The wide open spaces stretch across north-central Montana around Great Falls, which is home to the Montana Air National Guard and Malmstrom Air Force Base. The prime area for fighter pilot training is the atmosphere located above a rectangular block of land covering 25,200 square miles, said Col. Mark Meyer, commander of the Guard’s 120th Fighter Wing at Great Falls.

“What we have that nobody else has is the ability to train fighter pilots in lots of air space,” he said. “What the Air Force should be doing is using that air space.”

As decisions are made in the latest round of base closings, Montana should push for a fighter wing from some targeted installation to be assigned at Malmstrom or the Air Guard base at Great Falls International Airport, Meyer said.

Schweitzer said that is the message he will take to Washington, D.C, May 10 through 12 when he plans to meet with Pentagon officials.

Adding a fighter wing to Malmstrom, which primarily handles 200 intercontinental ballistic missiles scattered across the Montana plains, will help ensure its survival in future rounds of base-closing decisions, he said. Without a second mission, loss of the missiles to comply with future treaties would threaten the very existence of the base, Schweitzer said.

The Defense Department plans to release its list of proposed base closings May 13. A special commission will then have until Sept. 8 to review the list and then make its recommendations to President Bush. Both the president and Congress must approve any closings.

Mosley and Meyer met with Schweitzer to lay out their vision of how Montana can capitalize on what other states may lose.

Fighter wings from some of the closed bases will need new homes, and Montana should have the welcome mat out, they said.

Meyer said the long rectangular air space – 280 miles wide by 90 miles deep – is unlike any other available to the military in this country. It covers an area nearly the size of Florida.

A 50-by-120 mile swath south of Malta and Harlem offers rare opportunity for low-level flying, he said.

Meyer said other military air spaces are plagued with problems. They are dotted with no-fly areas and noise restrictions, have large population centers nearby and are laced with commercial airline routes, he said.

Montana has none of those drawbacks, yet the area is used for training only about two hours a day, he said. “This huge air space out there is a national asset, and it’s going to waste.”

In addition to plenty of wild blue yonder, a fighter wing at Malmstrom would have hangar and apron space for storage of jets, he said. The location of a wing at Malmstrom or the Air Guard base also would satisfy a growing push by the Pentagon for “blending” active duty and National Guard units, Meyer added.

His Guard unit has about 1,000 full- and part-time soldiers and 17 F-16s.