Shift of Refueling Tankers to Crowded Air Force Bases Raises Eyebrows : Military: Move to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey will cost $150 million to $270 million, critics say.

Nineteen Air Force cargo jets as big as wide-bodies are being moved from their Louisiana home to a New Jersey base that has neither the facilities to handle them nor the airspace they need to fly formations.

The move to McGuire Air Force Base, which runs contrary to an Air Force recommendation, will cost taxpayers at least $150 million, and some estimates approach $270 million.

Critics say politics are behind the shift.

“It’s an absolutely goofy decision,” said Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), whose state is one of two losing the planes. “McGuire should have been closed. They were looking for a way to keep McGuire open.”

The big jets, called KC-10s, carry huge amounts of cargo and can refuel B-52s aloft. For 13 years, they’ve been housed at Barksdale Air Force Base outside Bossier City, La., at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina, and at March Air Force Base in California.

By the time the Air Force finishes moving them around in early 1996, its fleet of 59 KC-10s will be stationed almost entirely at McGuire and at California’s Travis Air Force Base.

A year ago, a commission appointed by Congress to determine which military bases should be closed, and do it without political influence, vetoed an Air Force recommendation to downgrade McGuire to a reserve facility, which would have cut more than 3,500 military and civilian jobs in central New Jersey.

The Air Force wanted to move the KC-10s to Plattsburgh Air Force Base in Upstate New York. The Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, however, voted not only to keep McGuire open but to upgrade it with the KC-10 post and an additional 2,600 jobs. Plattsburgh was ordered closed.

The commission’s chairman then was James Courter, a former New Jersey congressman.

Courter, now in private legal practice in northern New Jersey, did not return repeated calls from the Associated Press. But at the time the McGuire decision was announced, he said, “I get criticized either way. If my votes hurt New Jersey, then I’m demonstrating my independence. If my vote helps the state, I’m not independent.”

“I think the move was politically dictated,” retired Lt. Gen. Edgar Harris of Bossier City, a former 8th Air Force commander, said in an interview. “The location of the KC-10s there is going to be expensive.”

Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) argues that the impetus for the move was not politics but the Air Force’s own restructuring decision that required putting KC-10s on both coasts. He said McGuire was clearly the cheapest location for the East Coast.

Is the Air Force wasting money by moving the jets from Barksdale?

“I’m not expert enough to know whether the answer is yes or no,” said Saxton, whose district includes McGuire. “But the Air Force decided it is (cost-efficient). I’m not going to second-guess them.”

Saxton put the cost of the switch at less than $150 million; Johnston estimated about $180 million. But an Air Force source with expertise in B-52 and KC-10 operations, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated that the eventual costs of upgrading McGuire and flying the KC-10s out of New Jersey could push the price tag to at least $270 million.

Johnston and critics in the Air Force assert that McGuire, even after an estimated $154.3 million in alterations, may never be suitable for handling the jets. Among the potential problems alleged by Air Force sources, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity:

* McGuire is within one of the nation’s heaviest air traffic corridors, just 35 miles from Philadelphia’s airport and roughly 50 miles from the busy skies over northern New Jersey and New York City.

The Air Force requires KC-10 pilots to practice drills flying up to four of the jets in formation. “When we talked with the local air traffic control people about that, they just laughed,” one Air Force source said. “They said there was no way.”

KC-10 training normally ranges over hundreds of miles, with uncluttered airspace an obvious advantage. One Air Force source said that a refueling practice involving B-52s and KC-10s from McGuire in September had to fly all the way to Arkansas to find enough free airspace to perform the operation.

Saxton said potential airspace problems had been “thoroughly explored” by the base closure commission and the Federal Aviation Administration, which concluded that “it would not be a significant problem.”

* McGuire, in the congested corridor, doesn’t offer enough clearance for fully loaded KC-10s to take off. Sending the planes aloft could require an expensive, time-consuming piggyback operation, described by the senior Air Force source: “You probably will have to have two KC-10s take off at the same time and have one fuel the other. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Saxton disagreed, saying McGuire’s runway can handle fully loaded KC-10s.

* Operating the jets in New Jersey’s colder weather will drive up costs. One Air Force source cited the return flight of a KC-10 from McGuire to Barksdale last February; the plane required seven truckloads of de-icing fluid before it could take off, which cost $39,200. If the KC-10s continue to make 10 flights a day, as they do at Barksdale, winter de-icing costs at McGuire could run $392,000 a day, the source said.

* McGuire lacks a hangar large enough for KC-10 maintenance, the sophisticated fueling system the big planes require, and a drainage system capable of handling large quantities of hazardous de-icing chemicals.

In the past, particularly during the Cold War when B-52s were on 24-hour alert, the bombers were almost always housed with the KC-10s.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Air Force broke the Strategic Air Command into two groups: the Air Combat Command and the Air Mobility Command. The bombers are now under ACC, while AMC handles the tanker-cargo jets. The Air Force said clustering KC-10s on the East and West coasts would make deployment in times of foreign crises easier.

The Air Force wanted Plattsburgh to be its East Coast “air mobility” base, but the commission overruled the recommendation and chose to upgrade McGuire for that role.

McGuire is also getting a center to train air mobility personnel, an operation that was previously divided among six facilities around the country, and an operations group that specializes in setting up air bases in war zones, Saxton said.

“Over the long term, there’s no question that that’s going to save money,” Saxton said.

Barksdale was not abandoned. As part of the switch, the Louisiana base will be doing all B-52 training and getting more B-52s. Johnston initially approved the new alignment because of the 25 additional bombers, for a total of 60. But after the early estimate was cut back to 35 bombers total, he became a vocal critic.

The Air Force recently increased the number of bombers at Barksdale to 49.

Under the base closure and realignment system, Congress votes an entire package of base decisions either up or down. Lawmakers do not know the recommendations until the committee issues them and the moves are “a done deal,” Johnston said.

All of Barksdale’s 19 KC-10s had transferred to McGuire by late October. Nevertheless, Johnston says he’ll try to get the McGuire move reversed next year when the base closure panel considers its next set of realignments.