Raptors still need a home

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Sept. 23, 1999 | 11:02 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- As Congress debates the future of funding for the costly and controversial F-22 Raptor, Air Force officials confirmed Wednesday that the supersonic jet doesn't yet have a home -- despite reports that Nellis Air Force Base would be one of the permanent bases for the F-22s.

"The specific basing decisions have not been made," Stephanie VanDevander, Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said. "We should know soon."

Spokesmen at Nellis Air Force Base could not confirm that the F-22 would be based there.

Early models of the sophisticated next generation of stealth fighter jet will be tested at Nellis, the Air Force's premier testing grounds, officials have said. That means that as early as 2002 several of the Raptors will be housed near Las Vegas indefinitely.

Nellis also has been suggested as a likely permanent base for the F-22. The Air Force has asked for money to build 339 of the jets, which could be based around the world.

In August President Clinton signed a military construction bill that allocated $18.6 million for the construction of a maintenance hangar, parts warehouse and fabrication shop at Nellis specifically for the F-22 -- even though Congress has yet to fund the jet.

"They wouldn't be spending millions of dollars in military construction to house it at Nellis if they didn't plan to base it there," said Jay Cranford, a spokesman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., a former fighter pilot and a leading advocate in Congress for the F-22.

Lockheed-Martin spokesman Greg Caires said that the Air Force has not announced where the battle-ready Raptors will be based.

But he added, "Nellis will play a significant role in the F-22 program. That is where the Air Force pilots will go to learn how the F-22 handles as a weapon, not just as a plane."

Lockheed officials have been lobbying Congress heavily to build the F-22, which would be manufactured at the company's Marietta, Ga., plant.

Nevada's four members of Congress have supported the plane's development, in part because of its future at Nellis.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., has supported the F-22, although he is concerned that the military needs to invest its money in "quality of life issues" for military personnel -- better base housing, benefits and salaries.

"I'm not leading the charge" for the F-22, Bryan said in an interview with the Sun this week.

"No one has ever come to me and said, 'Those planes will be based at Nellis,' " he said.

The F-22, with an estimated pricetag of between $100 million and $200 million per plane -- potentially the costliest plane ever -- was designed to keep pace with new fighters being developed by the Russians. Two models of the Raptor have already been built and are being tested at Edwards Air Force Base.

Many in Congress say the supersonic jet is a must-buy.

Gibbons, who served in Vietnam and the Gulf War, has been working behind the scenes in Congress to convince members of the committee now debating F-22 funding that "you don't want to go into a war with the trailing edge in technology."

"We are in a stalemate in terms of air power with several foreign-made aircraft. We no longer have the edge," Gibbons said. "With the F-22, we go a quantum leap ahead of them in our ability to dominate the sky."

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., agreed: "I have been an advocate of the F-22, not only because it's good for Nellis Air Force Base and good for my district, but because it's vital for the defense of the country."

But others in Congress, led by House Defense Appropriations Committee chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., say the plane may be too expensive for its purpose, given that the next generation of enemy planes are far from development and of little threat in the post-Cold War. At the very least, the jet fighter needs more testing, critics say.