TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE — Better late than never.
Monday afternoon, the first of two dozen F-22 fighter jets will begin landing at Tyndall Air Force Base nearly a year after they were originally scheduled to arrive. Five jets will arrive Monday, and when the rest arrive Tyndall will be home to the largest single-base contingent of “the world’s most advanced aircraft” on Earth and 1,100 new positions.
Tyndall transitioned from a training mission to a combat mission in October 2012, but in January 2013 the Air Force announced the arrival of the F-22s at the base would be delayed for almost a year.
“We’re really excited about this,” said Herman Bell, chief of Tyndall's 325th Fighter Wing public affairs. “This has been a long time coming.”
Tom Neubauer, president of the Bay Defense Alliance, said in an email getting the jets to Tyndall is the result of years of effort and cooperation between civic leaders, elected officials and the defense alliance, which was created to preserve and enhance local military installations. Neubauer called the arrival “a win for Bay County.”
“It’s truly remarkable that our community is adding an important military mission and 1,000 plus jobs in these economic times,” Neubauer wrote.
Community support for local military installations was crucial to securing the base’s role as the home of the combat deployable planes, Bell said.
“We get the opportunity to have these missions because of the support from the community,” he said.
Bell said those jobs aren’t jobs per se; you can’t go to Tyndall with a resume and apply for one of them.
“It’s going to be approximately 1,100 new positions to Tyndall, and some of them will be civilian but most will be military,” Bell said.
It’s been years since the last time officials assessed the economic impact associated with the arrival of the F-22s, and changes in circumstances at the base have likely rendered that assessment inaccurate, Bell said.
“Naturally it’s going to be positive for the community, but to put a dollar value on it?” Bell said. “I’d be very reluctant to do that.”
The arrival also signifies a shift in the mission for the 95th Fighter Squadron from training to operations, said Bell. That means Tyndall will no longer simply be the base for personnel to train with the jets; they’ll be ready to deploy for combat missions around the world whenever they’re needed.
“This is not a change of mission,” Bell said. “This is an expansion.”
The five jets coming Monday are the first of 24 that are being transferred from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.