Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne on Friday spent some time at the New York Air National Guard’s Hancock Field, near Syracuse. Rep. James Walsh (R-N.Y.) arranged the visit “to ensure the highest-ranking officials within the Air Force recognize the full value this base brings to our nation’s air defense system.” Hancock was not one of the facilities that USAF targeted for closure during BRAC 2005, but the 174th Fighter Wing, which calls Hancock home, is slated to lose its F-16s. And, before the BRAC cuts came out, Walsh already had gotten USAF to say it would place a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle unit at the facility.
The House and Senate passed a continuing resolution Sept. 25 to keep the government funded through Dec. 20, and President Joe Biden has indicated he will sign the legislation. Under a CR, the Department of the Air Force said, space launch and testing modernization will fall short and technologies that…