Will the F-35s or Boeing’s F-15 EX fighter jets be coming to Selfridge Air National Guard base in Harrison Township?
That’s still up in the air.
What the base could land in the very near future is the next generation of refueling tankers, expected to replace the aging KC-135 Stratotankers, currently flying out of Selfridge.
“We are excited about the Air Force‘s desire to select Selfridge Air National Guard Base as the new home to the KC-46 platform, an indispensable source of tanker capacity for national security,” U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Rogers, adjutant general and director of the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs said, in a statement to The Macomb Daily. “We will continue to aggressively advocate for a fifth generation fighter to replace the current A-10 aircraft, a determination that must be made to retain the viability of Selfridge as we know it today.”
Rogers’ comments came on the heels of a Michigan Congressional Delegation (CODEL) letter signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and nearly all of the state’s lawmakers including Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, as well as U.S. Rep. John James, urging U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to select SANG as host base for a new squadron of 12 KC-46 A refueling tankers and next generation of fighter jets replacing the aging A-10s.
Peters, Stabenow and more recently James have led previous bipartisan efforts to ensure…
