The Montana Air National Guard’s 120th Fighter Wing kicked off its conversion from F-16 to F-15 fighters with a staged “demolition” of an aircraft hangar last week, reports Peter Johnson of the Great Falls Tribune. The wing is to receive $20 million in the next two years for five more construction projects. The Air Force targeted the unit to lose its F-16s, but the BRAC 2005 commission overruled that in favor of swapping F-16s for F-15s. USAF plans to put upgraded “Golden” Eagles with the 120th FW. MANG officials say they have received $1.2 million for the first two of seven projects, since the commission authorized the conversion. The MANG pilots will have strictly an air-to-air role once they get the F-15s from a Missouri Air Guard unit.
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…