Nellis adds wing to manage test range

Monday, Nov. 5, 2001 | 9:54 a.m.

The Air Force Air Warfare Center today added a fourth wing to improve day-to-day control of the Nevada Test and Training Range.

The 98th Range Wing at Nellis Air Force Base was created by the deactivation of the Range Management Office, which also was a military unit.

"The move is to provide more efficiency," Nellis spokeswoman Lt. Kelly Cahalan said. "It will result in fewer levels of management by eliminating an office under the Air Warfare Center and replacing it with its own wing."

The new wing joins the 53rd Wing, which is in charge of test and evaluation; the 99th Airbase Wing, which provides support structure; and the 57th Wing, the flying operations group. The 53rd is stationed at Elgin Air Force Base, Fla., while the 99th, 57th and new 98th are stationed at Nellis.

Col. Wilhelm Percival, who had run the Range Management Office from August 1998 to May 1999 before leaving to serve in Portugal, has returned to Nellis to take command of the new wing.

The standup ceremony, held this morning at the base, included the activation of two groups and four squadrons under Percival's command and was to be attended by Nellis AFB Commander Maj. Gen. L.D. Johnston and the other three wing commanders.

The new wing will provide integrated management structure for the 2.9 million-acre Nevada Test and Training Range and the Leach Lake Tactics Range near Barstow, Calif.

The Nevada Test and Training Range has more than 1,600 targets and is the only range in the free world that can host highly sophisticated training exercises that simulate full-scale battlefield exercises, Cahalan said.

The lineage of the 98th Range Wing can be traced to the 98th Bomb Group that flew B-52 Liberator bombers from Palestine, North Africa and Italy during World War II. It was deactivated in 1976.