Efforts Continue To Land New F-35 Fighter Jet In Montgomery’s Dannelly Field

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The capital city is among four other cities competing to be the new home of two new units of F-35 Fighter Jets. The F-35 would replace the F-16’s currently used by the 187th Fighter Wing here at Dannelly Field. Colonel Randy Efferson, commander of the fighter wing explains the process to bring the F-35 here has been like so far.

After months of preparation by the Alabama Air National Guard and the River Region, Colonel  Efferson says  the rest is out of their hands. In May, a site survey team spent a week in Montgomery surveying infrastructure of Dannelly Field and across the city.

Though months away from a final decision, Colonel Efferson says he feels good about some of the feedback from the survey team saying “they found that we were a very good operationally because of our location and proximity to other air force assets, we can train together, it works great” and ” they came up with a cost for us about 18.7 million dollars to vet it down here which is really cheap”.

The Colonel also says that landing the F-35 in Dannelly Field would “ensure that our Tuskegee heritage goes for another 50 years and man fighter air craft which I think is very important to not only the united states air force but the citizenry of Alabama”.

If Montgomery is not chosen as a site for one of the two F-35 fighter planes, Colonel Efferson says that they could continue using the F-16 planes for about another 10 years and work on being competitive for the next round of fighter jets.

The Air Force will announce it’s final decision for the top two preferred sites for the F-35  in the fall.