Museum Director Mel Glover and a group of locals had the fortunate opportunity recently to visit NAS Fallon on a tour guided by Zip Upham, NAS Fallon’s Public Affairs Officer. The group was first brought to the Observation Deck on the seventh floor of the Air Traffic Control Tower where Captain Shane Tanner greeted them along with amazing views of the valley.
Tanner welcomed the group, telling them that they were in the “almost” tallest location in Fallon. “This new tower was the tallest building in Fallon, but then the DFA plant eclipsed it by three inches.” Tanner has been the Skipper on base for the past year whose focus has been NAS Fallon’s future. “Much here is the same, but more will be new.” One of the planned facilities he described is the 200,000-square-foot maintenance hangar with 600,000 square feet of wrap space for the six F-35Cs coming on board within the next year. “Our mission here is to provide the most realistic warfare training environment that the US Navy and the US, in general, has to offer for conducting both air-to-air and air-to-surface advanced tactical deployment of all carrier wing assets.”
Tanner said the base estimate of its permanent housing needs from 2020 through 2027 will grow by 36%, with part of that new workforce coming about because of the new hangar. He estimated the base’s current permanent population at about 3,000 which includes military, government, and contractor personnel. A population that can double when Carrier Air Wing training is in progress. Tanner expects that another 1,000 permanent assignments will be added to the base due to expanding mission needs. “Mission growth means the base and all of its components must grow with it to accommodate the mission. We do unit-level training, air wing training, and individual aircrew training (Top Gun). We have different schoolhouses to train them in advanced weaponry and tactics for them to be the best on the planet.” When discussing the FRTC project, he said modernizing this base has been the US Navy’s Chief of Naval Operation’s number one priority. “It was such a priority we were able to push the Fallon Range Training Modernization complex into the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act approved just days before Christmas last year.”
Tanner went on to tell the group the base currently occupies about 8,000 acres with an additional 223,000 acres of land (bombing ranges) for training. For a base that was built during the Vietnam era, it will now grow to almost 1 million acres for the modernization needed to support advanced weaponry training. “Today’s weapons can reach targets that are many miles away. That matters because the enemy also has weapons that can reach out and touch us from much further away than back in the Vietnam days, requiring a much wider safety area around those range training areas.”
As the group watched, the last two F-18Cs in Fallon began their departure flights. Zip Upham said, “These are the same planes the Blue Angels used to fly, and they are the last of the legacy F-18s. They’re on their way to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson Arizona, affectionately called the Bone Yard. We will only have Super Hornets and F-35 Lightnings now.” As those last two planes took flight, Upham said, “That’s the last of the Charlies.”
After enjoying the view from the Observation Deck, and some additional base history provided by Upham, he guided the group to the retired aircraft display for a final picture to close out the tour. The tour was such a treat for the group that day, even in the face of the crazy winds that day.
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