The Holloman Air Force Base, located six miles to the southeast of downtown Alamogordo, has now secured funding for the construction of a new aerial training facility.
That funding is coming through the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes more than $738 million in military spending, including $635 billion in discretionary funds for base construction projects across the country.
Of that amount, exactly $20 million is going to Holloman to build a modern facility for the 6th Attack Squadron MQ-9 Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft Formal Training Unit.
The new facility will replace an existing building that New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich last year said was “falling apart, with some equipment being held together with duct tape.”
To say that the facility, which has also been challenged with plumbing and electrical issues, needs to be replaced, continued Heinrich. “would be an understatement.”
The building has nearly 70 rooms that have served as the home to hundreds of instructors, and active duty, reservists, and civil services students.
The new high-tech facility will be designed to allow pilots to train on the kind of modern equipment that they would typically use on an actual mission.
A construction schedule for the new facility has not yet been announced.
By Garry Boulard
