(File photo by chief photographer Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD _ The 104th Air National Guard Fighter Wing has further modified its plan to deal with $20.66 million runway repair at Barnes Regional Airport that will require a temporary displacement of the air-superiority jets from Westfield.
Reconstruction of the main runway (2/20) at Barnes will displace the F-15 fighter jets of the 104th Air National Guard Fighter Wing for the duration of the project. The original plan considered was to relocate the aircraft to Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee and maintain operations at Barnes.
However, the jets would not be housed in hangers at Westover, so plan B called for temporarily relocating the aircraft to Cape Cod at Otis Airbase on Camp Edwards.
The 104th announced Thursday that plan C will now be executed using facilities at both Westover and Otis.
The wing issued a release stating that during the scheduled runway construction at Barnes Air National Guard Base this summer, the unit’s F-15 operations will be split between the 102nd Intelligence Wing on Cape Cod and the 439th Air Reserve Wing in Chicopee, Mass. The 104th Fighter Wing will maintain its (defense mission) alert posture within the existing alert-infrastructure on Cape Cod while the training missions will fly out of Westover Air Reserve Base.
“We anticipate approximately twelve F-15s will be based at Westover as we complete our construction projects here at Barnes,” said Col. James Keefe, 104th Fighter Wing Commander. “Operating our training missions out of Westover Air Reserve Base will allow us to maintain our proficiency, while we maintain our alert posture at Otis.”
As previously announced, some of the 104th Fighter Wing members and aircraft will simultaneously operate the alert mission from the Cape, utilizing some of the preexisting infrastructure that was left in place following the F-15s transition to Westfield in 2008.
The expected runway repair time is 4-6 months, beginning in July. The jets are expected to return to Barnes at the end of this calendar year.
