Historic budget cuts halt training flights, trim F-35 testing at Nellis

The sequester budget ax fell heavy at Nellis Air Force Base with confirmation Friday that July’s Red Flag air combat exercise and the next graduate-level Weapons School for pilots have been canceled, an unprecedented move in the 66-year history of the United States Air Force.

“The advanced training is quickly coming to a halt,” Brig. Gen. Charles L. Moore Jr., commander of the 57th Wing, said in an interview. “The stuff that’s happening this year is going to have impacts on our force for many years to come.

“What’s really going on in the Air Force has never happened since 1947.”

This is the first time the Air Force has shifted to what is called a “tiered readiness” strategy, Moore said.

Moore, who oversees the Air Force’s most diverse wing with more than 130 aircraft flown by 39 squadrons at 12 installations, was referring to the gap in air combat expertise that will occur in July, when this year’s second Weapons School was scheduled to start.

The Weapons School is “vital to the success of our force,” Moore said.

The 100 students, who essentially become doctorate-level experts, set the future course for aerospace and cyber space fighting “to win any conflict we get in,” he said.

“These are the individuals that tear apart what we’ve done and figure out what we can do better. That will ripple,” Moore said. “There will be 100 who won’t be in the force for the next generation.”

The advanced training school was canceled with a decision earlier this week by Air Force leaders at the Pentagon and Air Combat Command to cut 45,000 flight hours for 12 U.S.-based fighter and bomber squadrons — one-third of the active-duty force — to save $300 million in fuel and flight operations through Oct. 1.

The cuts give combat operations overseas priority on flight hours but save $41 billion from March 1 to Oct. 1 to meet deficit-reduction obligations that kicked in under the sequester law when Congress and the Obama administration failed to agree on a plan to reduce the nation’s $16.6 trillion deficit.

With automatic budget cuts split between defense and non-defense programs, the Pentagon had to shoulder tens of billions of dollars more in cuts under sequestration on top of $487 billion in spending reductions over 10 years.

BLACK FLAG FOR RED FLAG

Cancellation of Weapons School and Red Flag training comes on the heels of last month’s announcement that the remainder of the Thunderbirds air demonstration team’s season was canceled, as was November’s Aviation Nation air show at Nellis.

Loss of visitors for the annual show will put a $19 million dent in the local economy.

Moore said canceling Weapons School saves 5,600 flight hours and $68 million, including $12 million directly from his budget.

Nearly all Air Force weapons systems are included in the school, from F-16 Fighting Falcon jets to B-52 bombers to remotely piloted Reaper aircraft.

Red Flag exercises draw an array of U.S. and international coalition warplanes and support aircraft to Nellis to fly two or three weeks of day-and-night training missions over the 2.9-million-acre Nevada Test and Training Range north of Las Vegas.

Canceling July’s Red Flag exercise eliminates 2,500 flight hours for more than 100 aircraft.

The last Red Flag, which ended in mid-March, involved about 125 aircraft from the U.S., Australia and Great Britain.

Moore said Red Flag exercises typically cost $20 million to $60 million to fly friendly and would-be enemy aggressor aircraft, fire missiles, cannons and drop bombs.

In addition, he said, “quite a few Green Flag exercises have been canceled” both in the East and West. Aircraft from Nellis support ground troops training at Fort Irwin, Calif., usually the last training stop before deployment in Afghanistan.

CANNED LIGHTNING

Nellis also is a test bed for the new F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter jets. Three of these high-tech, stealth aircraft are assigned to the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, a tenant unit of the 53rd Wing out of Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., that Nellis maintainers support.

“We are doing everything we can to keep testing of the F-35 on track and have some hours to continue in August, but they will stand down as well,” Moore said.

Flying reductions in the 57th Wing means pilots will spend more time training on simulators.

“Unfortunately, not all of our air crews have simulators for their particular airplanes. And, we don’t have money to travel” to bases where some of those simulators are located, he said.

The down time will, however, allow airmen to catch up on scheduled maintenance of aircraft.

Most of the 45,000 training flight hours are being cut across the Air Force to accommodate combat operations.

“We have to focus on combat ops,” Moore said. “Once you realize we have to focus on that, we don’t have money to do anything else.”

Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he anticipated budget cuts but was caught off guard by the magnitude.

“I didn’t think the level of reduction would cut that deeply for operational aspects of the services,” he said, after a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

“When you do things like cut out Red Flag and Weapons School, that’s a long-term loss. They’re losing the ability to train these pilots when they’re in the cycle, not to mention the impact on civilian contractors,” Heck said.

He said the next budget Congress approves needs to reflect training and operational priorities “to make sure we fund defense to the levels necessary.”

“Hopefully, Congress will take heed to what our service secretaries are saying,” Heck said.

In a statement, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will “continue to remain engaged with senior leadership” in the Pentagon and at Nellis and Creech Air Force Base, a hub for drone operations 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas, “to mitigate the effects that sequestration will have on Nevada military installations.”

“Unfortunately, Republicans have shown that their position on sequestration is they are unwilling to close even a single tax loophole for millionaires to prevent it,” Reid said.

A Nellis spokeswoman, Master Sgt. Kelley Stewart, said 1,100 civilian workers could also be affected by furloughs of up to 14 days off without pay through Sept. 30, “but none of these folks have been notified.”

So far, civilian contracts haven’t been affected.

Moore, a 1989 Air Force Academy graduate, said he remembers learning about lean times in the military after the Vietnam War era.

“We’ve certainly gone through difficult times before,” he said. “What got us through then and will get us through now is leadership and the very hard work of our airmen. We’ve got to tighten the seat belt.”

Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report. Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.