The Shreveport Times February 5, 2006
Barksdale has long history of change
Local Air Force base has seen airplanes, missions come and go.
By John Andrew Prime
News on Friday that the Defense Department is thinking of retiring more than a third of the nation's B-52 bombers may shock people accustomed to seeing the big airplanes lazily trace the skies over Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City.
The airplane, which turned 50 years old in April 2002 and marked its 50th year in the Air Force inventory last year, has proved to be one of the most capable and long-lived airplanes in history.
Even though barely one in eight of the 744 airplanes that rolled off the Boeing assembly lines still flies, their ability to carry the widest array of weaponry around the world nonstop has made them the big stick for this nation in time of war. And their safety record has almost made them a part of the landscape for many.
"For decades, everybody's been used to equating Barksdale with B-52s, and that's important," said U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana.
That picture could be shattered if the Pentagon's plan to cut the B-52 fleet from 94 airplanes to 56 becomes a reality.
But Vitter, together with his fellow Louisiana senator across the aisle, Mary Landrieu, and U.S. Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport, intend to fight to save the airplanes and to ensure Barksdale is considered in any future bomber planning.
"Barksdale has enormous strengths for the country because of its location, because of the capability built up there, for all sorts of future platforms," Vitter said.
"I see enormous strengths at Barksdale for continued B-52s, as well as possibly moving other assets and other capabilities there -- B-1s, B-2s, unmanned aerial vehicles, which was talked about.
"It's important that we understand and protect whatever local impact could happen at Barksdale," Vitter said. "But in the broader national context, it's also important that we have these sorts of reviews and make sure the military keeps up with a very changing environment.
"The war on terror is a fundamentally different sort of war. And we have to continue to have capabilities for more conventional situations," he said. "But we also have to adapt to that very different sort of threat. And so these reviews are an important part of that. I'm very confident Barksdale not only can, but will, play a major role in continuing to defend the country against all those sorts of threats."
Change could favor Barksdale
A letter written last week by Landrieu, Vitter and McCrery to Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, contends that it makes no sense to cut the number of B-52s when all of the service's arguments until now have been that it has become more valuable and effective with advances in modern "stand-off" weaponry. "If the older aircraft were retired, the savings could be used to operate and maintain the remaining B-52s more effectively," the politicians reasoned.
They pointed out that the current goal of military planners is "to provide defense and political leaders with increased non-nuclear strike options in a potential crisis." Thus, they said, current Pentagon thinking "appears to call for more, not fewer, conventional weapons like the B-52."
The number of bombers at Barksdale and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota can fluctuate at any given time because of deployments, mission requirements, the need to send the big planes to maintenance depots and the like.
According to the military think-tank GlobalSecurity.Org, Barksdale and its four squadrons -- three with the active-duty 2nd Bomb Wing and one in the Air Force Reserve's 917th Wing -- normally support 57 B-52s while Minot supports 36. Training missions are routinely flown out of both bases, though the Combat Crew Training School for the type is at Barksdale.
But the numbers suggest that all of the 56 B-52s that would remain in the fleet if the Pentagon's plan is adopted could be based at Barksdale alone. Conversely, if the numbers drop and the airplanes are spread between the two bases, either base could accommodate other missions, including any new bombers on the horizon.
Base has seen many changes
Barksdale's history suggests that such change is the norm and that the reign of one weapons system over all for five decades is the exception and not the rule.
The local base will turn 75 years old in February 2008. That also will mark the 50th anniversary of the B-52 as the main weapon at Barksdale.
But in its first 25 years, the base witnessed a bewildering variety of airplanes come and go, as well as its main reason for being.
Barksdale was created as a fighter facility. And if the demise of its mission or its main weapon was its sole reason for being, it would have shriveled up and blown away in the late 1930s, when its fighter mission was eliminated.
Instead, Barksdale began its reign as the queen of the bomber bases. First came the Martin B-10 and the Douglas B-18, then the North American B-25 and the Martin B-26 Marauder, the speedy but unforgiving twin-engine bomber most widely associated with the base by military historians.
Then came the heavy bombers: the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and its big brother, the B-50.
Right after World War II, Barksdale briefly changed from a bomber base to a training base, watching its population spike at more than 10,000, nearly twice the number of military personnel who call it home now.
If those changes weren't enough, the base then made the dramatic switch from propellers to jets, fielding the nation's first all-jet bomber and the first all-jet wing with the North American B-45 Tornado. Then came the B-47 Stratojet and, finally, the B-52.
Barksdale ready for the future
"Sure, some day, all those roughly 45-year-old B-52s will retire," said retired Lt. Gen. Brett Dula, whose command of 2nd Bomb Wing in the late 1980s was the start of a meteoric career that saw him retire as a lieutenant general in 1998. "Until that time, Boeing and Air Force inspectors will continue to watch, very closely, the airframe, landing gear systems, avionics, flight control systems and engines of the venerable H models at Minot and Barksdale.
"I doubt very seriously that one potentially catastrophic flaw will toll the retirement bells for the B-52," he added. "They are under increasing scrutiny by lots of folks who have watched the airplane for a long time and should catch any major flaw in the viability of the airplane."
Dula noted that the Quadrennial Defense Review and pronouncements by senior Air Force leaders last week reveal a commitment to field a "bombardment platform" by 2018.
Until some further focus emerges on paper, that could mean anything from a big new bomber to the next generation of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Regardless, Dula said, it is the infrastructure, people and surroundings of Barksdale that make it the military jewel it is and not the airplane that is the bird of the moment on its runways.
"Rest assured that Barksdale's infrastructure has kept pace with the years. And it has lots of space to 'grow' in order to accommodate any dramatic change in mission," he said. "And the people of Bossier City and Shreveport have done a wonderful job for 70-plus years of ensuring no commercial or community encroachment on the environs of the base."
© Copyright 2006, The Times
