NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — In the midst of a two-day visit to the Hampton Roads region, Sen. Tim Kaine sought to gain a better picture of what the region’s military bases need ahead of defense bill budget talks.
He spent Thursday morning at Langley Air Force Base and visited Little Creek-Fort Story in the afternoon.
Kaine said hearings for this year’s defense bill are about to start, and he wants to be prepared.
He said when he visits these bases, he wants to get a sense of what is needed for our nation’s military, and in addition to that, he wants to see some projects he’s fought for along the way, like having F-22 flight training at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.
“That might be somebody for the first time [and] in the second jet is their instructor who’s behind them, watching them fly for the first time,” Kaine said as he looked up at the sky.
The Air Force is now teaching students to fly F-22 Raptor fighter jets at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. Kaine went to bat to get them moved to Hampton Roads after Hurricane Michael destroyed the mission’s home at Tyndall Air Force Base back in 2018.
The decision to make the move to Hampton was made back in 2019.
He said moving a mission without losing pace is not an easy task.
“To move an F-22 training mission from one base to another, thousands, well, I don’t know, 1,200 miles away without losing the training capacity, without having a gap, extremely difficult,” Kaine said.
Kaine said he wanted to see them in action.
“It’s pretty amazing, you think, ‘OK, I’ve been in the simulator for months, they’re not going to have me sit around once I’m here, as soon as I’m here, I’m flying,'” Kaine said.
They’ve had a few graduating classes since they started training here last summer, and many instructors and personnel from Tyndall have had to pick up their lives and move from Florida to Virginia in the past year.
Kaine also wanted to get a look at the military construction projects that are necessary to bring this training component here, like additional housing for military families.
“The base was already short of housing for new airmen and women,” Kaine said, “and so we’re trying to go to bat for this dorm that would that would cut into that deficit.”
He said between Langley and Eustis, more than 25,000 people are on and off these bases each day.
Kaine said he’s also working to learn more about military recruitment during his visits to the different bases.
The Department of Defense said military services missed recruiting goals by 41,000 during the 2023 fiscal year. It is currently the smallest active duty force since 1940.
Kaine will head to Wallops Island Friday. He said he’s going to spend a little time at Rocket Labs and also talk with folks at the naval research base on the other side of the island about potential projects for next year.