New fighter jets due for Air National Guard. Could Fresno lose out in the shuffle?
For almost 70 years, Air National Guard pilots have flown fighter jets on patrol and training missions from their base at Fresno Yosemite International Airport.
From the Korean War-era F-86A Sabre used when the 194th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron relocated to Fresno from Alameda in 1954, the Fresno Air National Guard base has served as a key West Coast installation for increasingly modern fighter aircraft, most recently the F-15 Eagle.
Now, as the F-15 C and D models based here since 2013 approach the end of their service lives, Fresno faces the prospect of potentially losing out in a shuffle as the Air Force and Department of Defense evaluate where they plan to “beddown” a new generation of high-tech jets to replace the aging aircraft.
Three squadrons of new aircraft – two groups of high-performance F-15EX Strike Eagle jets and one squadron of stealthy F-35A Lightning II jets – are planned for deployment between 2026 and 2028.
Four sites across the country are being considered as bases for those new fighters, creating a high-stakes game of musical chairs in which one community is destined to be disappointed when a final decision is made by the Secretary of the Air Force – currently Frank Kendall – in 2024. Those sites are:
- The 144th Fighter Wing at Fresno Air National Guard Base at Fresno Yosemite International Airport.
- Naval Air Station Lemoore in Kings County.
- The 104th Fighter Wing at Barnes Air National Guard Base at Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in Westfield, Massachusetts.
- The 159th Fighter Wing at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans in Belle Chase, Louisiana.
The Lemoore base, home to the Navy’s Pacific Strike Fighter Wing of F-18E and F-18F Super Hornet squadrons, has no F-15 C or D models and is only under consideration for the F-35A squadron. Lemoore also has a squadron of the Navy’s F-35 variant, the carrier-based F-35C.
The other three sites are under evaluation to house either the F-15EX or F-35A. If Lemoore is chosen to host the F-35As for the Air National Guard, officials with the Defense Department said Fresno’s 144th Fighter Wing would be relocated to Lemoore.
“If the (Air Force) Secretary determines that the 144th would be the unit receiving those (F-35As) and determines that Lemoore is where they would want to put those, in that case the 144th would relocate entirely to Naval Air Station Lemoore, construct the facilities they need there, and operate from Lemoore,” said Will Strickland, who leads the environmental study of the base options for the Defense Department’s National Guard Bureau.
“That is not to exclude the possibility of the 144th being recapitalized with F-35s and remaining at Fresno Yosemite International Airport,” Strickland added in an August teleconference regarding the Fresno base. “That is another alternative” in addition to potentially being chosen for the new F-15EX jets instead.
Air Force Capt. Jason Sanchez, a spokesperson for the 144th Fighter Wing, said 15 F-15Cs and one F-15D are currently based in Fresno.
What’s at stake?
The potential for losing the Fresno Air National Guard base is realistic enough to spur Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, to jointly author a recent opinion piece in The Fresno Bee stressing the economic importance of the unit to the local economy and Fresno’s commitment to keeping the squadron here.
“The 144th Fighter Wing continues to invest in our community with an economic impact of nearly $160 million, including $94.1 million in military and civilian wages,” Dyer and Costa wrote. “This significantly benefits our workforce, with high-paying career opportunities that help sustain the regional economy.”
“With 1,106 military and civilian personnel, the 144th Fighter Wing remains one of Fresno’s most valued employers,” the two officials added.
None of the four bases check all of the Air Force’s boxes for what it’s looking for in a site for either of the new jets; whichever bases are selected will require both new construction and renovations of existing facilities to meet the military’s needs.
“Each location is unique and has specific advantages and disadvantages. There are many factors that are weighed in the Secretary’s decision making,” Strickland said. “The environmental impacts are a substantial piece of that. How they’re able to meet the mission requirements are a piece of that. The economics involved are a piece of that. So there is a broad scope of advantages and disadvantages for each location, and all of those things play in to the Secretary’s decision making.”
Each of the future F-15EX squadrons will include 21 primary aircraft and three backup or reserve jets, and bring about 100 additional personnel to the selected bases, Strickland said. The new F-35A squadron will have 21 primary and two backup jets, and increase staffing at the selected base by about 80.
“Should the Air Force decide not to bed down either of these aircraft at one or more of these locations, it is feasible that any of these fighter wings could continue operating their existing legacy F-15 C and D aircraft for a limited time,” the Department of Defense stated in a slide presentation about the program.
If Fresno is chosen: end of Airways Golf Course?
A public comment period on the scope of the initial proposal closed in early September. Now military officials are using the comments received for all four of the bases being evaluated to prepare a draft environmental impact statement which is expected to be published in the summer of 2023, Strickland said.
That document will be available for another round of public comments for at least 45 days, including the likelihood of public hearings by the Defense Department. That will be followed by the preparation and release of a final environmental impact statement in the spring of 2024. That document, in turn, will provide the basis for the official decision by the Air Force secretary on the three bases selected for beddown of the new aircraft.
If Fresno’s 144th Fighter Wing is chosen by Kendall to be one of the host bases for the replacement aircraft, there are a couple of options for how the Fresno Air National Guard base could be configured, depending on the construction projects required to accommodate the new jets.
One option calls for nearly all of the new construction – a new main gate to the base, fire station, medical training facility, munitions office – and renovation of existing structures including squadron operations, an alert crew facility and maintenance buildings, to occur within the existing footprint of the base along McKinley Avenue, south of the Fresno Yosemite International Airport runways.
A second option would move the entire “cantonment area” of the installation to north of the runways, where it would largely displace the existing Airways Golf Course along Airways Avenue west of Clovis Avenue.
About the aircraft
The two new-generation aircraft both represent high-tech upgrades over the existing F-15 Eagle C and D models. Both have estimated price tags of about $80 million per airplane, according to published reports.
The F-15EX Strike Eagle, also called the Eagle II, is manufactured by Boeing. It is described as a multi-role fighter that measures almost 64 feet long with a wingspan of about 43 feet. It can fly at speeds of about 1,900 mph or Mach 2.5, or 2 1/2 times the speed of sound. It has a combat range of 1,100 miles and can reach altitudes of up to 60,000 feet.
With its longer range and greater payload than its predecessor Eagle, the Strike Eagle can carry almost 30,000 pounds of ordinance on external weapons points.
Deployment of the F-15EX fighters to the selected bases is expected in 2027 or 2028.
The Air Force’s original purchase of F-15EX jets was sliced from 144 to 80 aircraft as part of the 2023 budget, according to a report last month by the website BreakingDefense.com. The website reported that the buy would replace older aircraft for only about three existing Air Force or Air National Guard squadrons, leaving five other squadrons of F-15 C and D models without replacements by either F-15EX or F-35A fighter jets.
The F-35A Lightning II, built by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, is the land-based Air Force variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. There’s also the F-35B for the Marine Corps with short-takeoff and vertical-landing capabilities, and the F-35C carrier-based version for the Navy.
The Lightning II is also a multi-role fighter replacing F-15 Eagles, F-16 Falcons and A-10 Warthog aircraft. It’s shorter than the Strike Eagle, at about 51 feet in length, with a narrower wingspan of 35 feet. It has a slower top speed as well, at 1,200 mph or Mach 1.6. What it lacks in speed it makes up for with advanced stealth capabilities that make it more difficult to detect on radar.
It can carry up to 18,000 pounds of ordinance in both internal bays and on external weapons points, has a ceiling of 50,000 feet, and a combat radius of 670 miles.
Whichever base is chosen to host the Air National Guard’s F-35As will likely be receiving those aircraft in 2026.
Air guard history in Fresno
The 144th Fighter Wing traces its roots to 1948, within months of the establishment of the Air National Guard. Originally based in Alameda, the 61st Fighter Wing and, later the 194th Fighter Squadron, flew a combination of T-6 training aircraft, a B-26 bomber, a C-47 cargo transport, an L-17 liaison aircraft, and a pair of P-51 Mustang fighters. The P-51s were flown until late 1954.
According to a unit history on the wing’s website, the 61st Fighter Wing was redesignated in 1950 as the 144th Fighter Bomber Wing. By 1954, the unit had transitioned from its propeller-driven P-51s to the jet-powered F-86A Sabre, and the 194th Fighter Squadron relocated to Fresno.
The 144th unit was reclassified as the 144th Fighter Interceptor Wing in 1955, and the wing followed the 194th squadron to Fresno in 1957.
In 1958, the wing’s aircraft were replaced with newer F-86L Sabres, which served untl 1964 when the F-102 Delta Dagger was put into service. The F-106 Delta Dart followed in 1974.
In 1984, the 144th received the F-4D Phantom jets, which were followed in 1989 by the F-16A Fighting Falcon. A newer version of the Falcon, the F-16C, arrived in 1995.
The wing flew the Fighting Falcons until 2013, when a transition to the first F-15 Eagle fighter jets arrived.
In addition to the actual squadron of fighter aircraft and flight operations, the wing’s presence at Fresno Yosemite International Airport includes a headquarters staff and units for maintenance, civil engineering, security, logistics, communications and medical needs.
This story was originally published October 9, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
