There are multiple projects for improvements at Vance Air Force Base that total more than $100 million, including a new squadron operations center and a new school to replace Eisenhower Elementary School. (Ashley Crist/U.S. Air Force)
ENID, Okla. (Tribune News Service) — There are multiple projects for improvements at Vance Air Force Base that total more than $100 million, including a new squadron operations center and a new school to replace Eisenhower Elementary School.
Mike Cooper, with the Vance Development Authority and the liaison between the city of Enid and the U.S. Air Force, said those are the two most important projects in the works for the base. The VDA looks to enhance Vance’s infrastructure, quality of life and military values, and the squad operations center covers all three, Cooper said.
The new squadron operations center would consolidate many operations under one roof. It would combine the 25th Flying Squadron, the 71st Student Squadron, as well as weather flight and base operations into one facility. It would also hold barracks, student classrooms and would replace temporary facilities the base spends $500,000 a year on. The cost for the facility is between projected to be $80 million $90 million.
An amount of $8.4 million was approved by the U.S. Senate recently, and Cooper said Sen. Markwayne Mullin has been instrumental in helping secure funding for projects a t Vance. The approved money will allow for the engineering and planning for the facility.
“The best thing that’s happened there is us getting that $8.4 million to tee up the engineering and design,” Cooper said. “So then you can come back once they have that and come back and ask for the money for the consolidated ops training facility. This is really the remaining infrastructure project we need at Vance currently.”
Another important factor in the construction of the facility will be the simulators for the Undergraduate Pilot Training that would also be housed there. The Air Force is working to determine if the simulator track, which had been called UPT 2.5 and was recently coined as UPT, is more efficient in the training of pilots than traditional training with students spending most of their training in a traditional cockpit.
The simulator training track was scheduled to go online at Vance in 2021, but was implemented a year early in 2020, as there was an expected shortage of pilots due to the COVID pandemic. The program still involves training in aircraft, and has even been called more difficult than training from previous decades, according to Maj. Gen. Craig Wills said in a 2022 story by 71st Flying Training Wing Public Affairs at Vance.
Cooper said there is also a lot of credit to go to Sen. Mullin, as well as Congressman Frank Lucas, on the construction of a new school to replace Eisenhower. A new school is projected to cost around $30 million. Enid Public Schools would need to match 20% of the cost, or around $6 million. Cooper said the new school will be a reality, and it is only a matter of gathering the funds. EPS already has $540,000 from the Oklahoma Military Strategic Planning Commission from the past two years, and any additional funding granted by the commission in future years would be added to that total.
Holubar is business reporter for the Enid News & Eagle.
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