The Virginians against the OLF have just transitioned their website to a new format and included a video. I recommend all MARC-PRIDE citizens visit this website and view the video. http://www.novaolf.com/ First Citizen
Letter to the Virginian-Pilot editor on April 6, 2009: Billboards all over North Carolina tout it as 'the most military-friendly state in America,' part of a state PR campaign to expand bases and lure defense dollars. A bill by Rep. Bill Owens to require state consent for the federal government to acquire land in any county where there wasn't already a military base seems to indicate the contrary.
While the merits of such a legislative bloviation, as well as its constitutionality, will need to be fully vetted by the General Assembly and perhaps the courts, the message being sent to the Department of Defense is hardly friendly. Legislation that supports the military and provides a better quality of life for servicemembers and their families is the true measure of a 'military-friendly state.'
North Carolina can't have it both ways either it is the 'most military-friendly state in America' or it is not.
MARC-PRIDE citizens: Please take note of the following message from the Virginians Against the OLF -
From: Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Date: Apr 10, 2009 10:42am Subject: VAOLF Upcoming Events
Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field Post Office Box 112 ~ Capron, Virginia 23929
Dear Friends,
There are a couple of events coming up that we wanted you to be aware of.
On Wednesday, April 15th, The Wakefield Ruritan Club will be hosting the 61st Annual Shad Planking at the Wakefield Sportsman's Club. This annual event historically draws leading political candidates for every major elected office, and this year will be no different. All four candidates for governor will be attending as well as those running for lieutenant governor. Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field will again have a booth and will be handing out information and answering questions. Please come out and support VAOLF at this event. The more OLF opponents the political candidates see, the more we can influence their position. More information is available at www.shadplanking.com.
On Tuesday, April 28th at 7pm, the U.S. Navy will have representatives at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Jarratt, Virginia to answer questions about the proposed OLF. All are welcome and strongly encouraged to attend. The Navy has stressed that this will be a question and answer session and not a debate. Please come prepared to ask questions. Bethlehem Baptist Church is located at 26843 Grizzard Road in Jarratt.
Also, you may have noticed some changes to the website. It is still under reconstruction and will be complete within the next week. We appreciate your patience during the time it has gone without updates, as we have been working on changing its appearance and capabilities. The OLF video will be posted to the site and we will even have online donation capabilities! A notice will go when it is complete.
Thanks to all of you who continue to support VAOLF. Please continue writing our elected officials as well as candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. We look forward to seeing all of you at one of the upcoming events.
Warmest regards, Tony Clark Chairman, VAOLF
This message was sent from Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field. It was sent from: Tony Clark, P.O. Box 112, Capron, VA 23829.
If anyone is going to be in the vicinity of the Jarratt, VA area on Tuesday evening, April 28th, you may want to drop in on this OLF informaton session that th Navy is sponsoring:
On Tuesday, June 2nd I had the opportunity to share lunch with Ms. Kay Pope and Mr. Tony Clark in Franklin, VA.
Ms. Pope is a life-long resident of Southampton County, unsuccessfully ran for the Board of Supervisors, is a local business owner, and currently serves on the Franklin-Southampton Futures Alliance – an activity that is focused on the county future. Mr. Clark is the Chairman of the Virginians Against the OLF group. His family is life-long residents of Southampton County and he has recently returned to the area after living in Richmond for a number of years.
Ms. Pope had extended an invitation to me to visit with her to discuss the OLF. Both she and Mr. Clark are opposed to the OLF being sited in Southampton County and I was able to develop a greater appreciation for the basis of the concerns. Mr. Clark believes that JSF will never be suitable for homebasing at Oceana and therefore the future of Oceana is in question….and thus the OLF isn’t really a requirement. He also suggested that the OLF requirement could be mitigated by relocating a number of squadrons to MCAS Cherry Pt.
At the end of the day, neither side of the discussion had relaxed their going in positions, but at least we had talked. Hopefully, it is the precursor to future dialogue. All in all, we had a collegial and professional discussion and I offered the good offices of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance (HRMFFA) to assist them with information and perhaps enabling discussions relative to how a community might negotiate the best possible economic benefit out of an OLF through public-private partnerships to develop business and compatible activities.
IN ITS JUNE 20 editorial “OLF melodrama moves to Washington,” The Virginian-Pilot correctly characterizes the situation surrounding the Navy’s outlying landing field as melodrama. Since the beginning of the OLF scenario many years ago, there has been an almost universal failure to focus on the relevant centerpiece of the OLF. Some want to cast the entire OLF dynamic in emotionally polarizing rhetoric leveraging arguments about encroachment, failed municipal planning, noise, economics and a variety of other perspectives. Politics from both North Carolina and Virginia has now cast its shadow over the situation. The one truly important aspect, training, remains missing from the dialogue. Landing a high performance jet aircraft traveling more than 130 miles per hour on a moving airfield at sea in the dark of night, and with less than favorable weather, is the most physically and physiologically demanding task ever asked of a pilot. Testing during the Vietnam War showed that pilots’ heart and breathing rates were higher during night carrier landings than during combat operations in dense surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft environments. The most important element that enables Navy pilots to succeed is training. Repetitive training in an environment that replicates as closely as possible the worst possible conditions a pilot may encounter is the critical component of an excellent safety record. To safely land an aircraft aboard a carrier requires the pilot to position his jet in a window that is 10 feet high and 10 feet wide at the point the aircraft crosses the end of the 700-foot-long deck landing strip. During the day, with good weather, the experience is fun and exhilarating in a professionally satisfying way. Even so, the final 20-30 seconds require strict adherence to visual aids on the ship’s flight deck to guide the pilot into that 10-by-10 window. Once the sun sets, the fun and exhilaration end. Without the sensory inputs available during the day, pilots are left to rely totally on the experience gained from hours and hours of training at night. The more closely the training replicates what will be experienced in the worst-case scenarios, the better trained our pilots are. Regrettably, the skills to land safely aboard an aircraft carrier — those to safely fly the aircraft through that 10-by-10 window two seconds prior to touchdown — are perishable, particularly at night. It takes only one failed night landing attempt to appreciate the magnitude of the potential loss of life and property. As long as this nation continues to invest in nuclear-powered aircraft carriers as the centerpiece of its efforts in hot spots around the globe, the Navy will need to provide its pilots the best possible training. As a nation we have both a responsibility and an obligation to provide that training. High-performance military jet aircraft these days cost tens of millions of dollars each. Inadequate, less-than-ideal training for the pilots who operate them places that investment at risk, not to mention the potential risk to personnel. The OLF melodrama is going to continue. Hopefully, when the curtain finally closes on the “exaggeratedly emotional behavior” that defines melodrama, the only really important issue — training — will be left to receive the standing ovation it deserves.
Frank Roberts, a retired Navy fighter pilot, spent 20 years flying F-4s and F-14s, including more than 1,000 aircraft carrier landings, 300 at night. He is executive director of Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, based in Norfolk.
MARC-PRIDE, I am sharing the overly passionate broadcast e-mail of the Chairman of the Virgians Opposed to the OLF with you because it vividly portrays how emotionally polarized this issue is:
Forwarded message ---------- From: Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Date: Aug 18, 2009 2:04pm Subject: Candidates ignoring citizen concern on OLF
> Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field > > Post Office Box 112 ~ Capron, Virginia 23829 > > August 18, 2009 > > Dear friends, > > > As many of you know by now, neither of the two principal candidates for governor have been willing to sit down with us and hear our side of the OLF story. Four months ago, Bob McDonnell looked me squarely in the eyes and promised that he would sit down and listen to our concerns. He insisted that he needed more information and wanted to hear from both sides. For four months, his campaign was either non responsive or played pass-the-buck when we requested they schedule a meeting. Now in August, his campaign has told us he doesn't have the time. > > > The Creigh Deeds campaign flat out ignored our requests for a meeting. A number of email messages to his campaign submitted through his official campaign website were never returned. This past Friday at the Southampton County Fair, I had the opportunity to be introduced to Mr. Deeds. After introducing myself and requesting a meeting with him to discuss our view on the OLF, the candidate told me he didn't have the time, that he only had 81 days left until the election. > > > He was there to ask for our vote, but wasn't willing to take the time to hear our concerns on an issue that is extremely personal and vitally important to thousands of residents across Western Tidewater. > > > I am outraged, and I know many of you are, too. > > > So the question becomes, will we continue to sit back and allow ourselves to be represented at the highest levels of government by professional office seekers whose primary concerns are public opinion polls and focus group ratings? Or will we begin to demand the accountability that we deserve and put individuals in office who are sincere in their desire to represent our best interests? > > > This is an issue that far outweighs the OLF. We live in extremely complex times and face extremely complex issues. If both candidates are unwilling to deal with the OLF, how will they respond to other issues? How will they respond to crisis? Will they demonstrate the same head in the sand attitude they have adopted with the OLF? > > > We live in times that call for more leaders, not more politicians. > > > When that leader emerges, they will have my vote. > > > As of right now, neither candidate does. > > > Tony Clark > > Chairman, Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field >
> This message was sent from Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field. It was sent from: Tony Clark, P.O. Box 112, Capron, VA 23829.
The House receded to the Senate’s OLF provision during the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act conference ; the final provision regarding the OLF:
SENATE REPORT 111-35 ACCOMPANYING NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
Secretary of the Navy report on an outlying landing field:
The committee notes the requirement for the Department of the Navy to establish an outlying landing field (OLF) to support the stationing and operation of carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft on the East Coast of the United States within a suitable range of both Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, and Naval Station Norfolk/Chambers Field, Virginia. The OLF will also support training requirements of transient carrier-based aircraft to be stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina. The OLF serves as a critical training facility for pilots to practice aircraft carrier landings with lower risk and under more controlled conditions before conducting highly demanding day and night carrier landings at sea. A new OLF will afford the Department increased scheduling capacity to mitigate current capacity shortfalls, greater operational flexibility, improved safety, and higher training fidelity in operational flight training on the East Coast. The committee is aware that public opposition has been expressed to the Department of the Navy during the preparation of an environmental impact statement evaluating sites for a future OLF in North Carolina and Virginia. The committee expects the Secretary of the Navy to take into consideration the impact on local communities of the placement and operation of an OLF and to examine means to mitigate the impact on those communities. As part of that consideration, the committee directs the Secretary of the Navy to engage and consult with the State of North Carolina and the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as local governments and other public stakeholders, prior to the issuance of a final environmental impact statement and record of decision, to identify ways to mitigate impacts, to evaluate opportunities for economic assistance, and to minimize the land removed from the state tax base. The committee further directs the Secretary of the Navy, prior to the issuance of a final environmental impact statement and record of decision, to provide to the Congressional Defense committees a report containing a review of the aforementioned engagement and consultations, as well as the results of those engagements. The report shall include a description of the measures taken by the Department of the Navy to identify all suitable options for the location of an outlying landing field.
The Virginians against the OLF have just transitioned their website to a new format and included a video.
ReplyDeleteI recommend all MARC-PRIDE citizens visit this website and view the video.
http://www.novaolf.com/
First Citizen
Letter to the Virginian-Pilot editor on April 6, 2009:
ReplyDeleteBillboards all over North Carolina tout it as 'the most military-friendly state in America,' part of a state PR campaign to expand bases and lure defense dollars. A bill by Rep. Bill Owens to require state consent for the federal government to acquire land in any county where there wasn't already a military base seems to indicate the contrary.
While the merits of such a legislative bloviation, as well as its constitutionality, will need to be fully vetted by the General Assembly and perhaps the courts, the message being sent to the Department of Defense is hardly friendly. Legislation that supports the military and provides a better quality of life for servicemembers and their families is the true measure of a 'military-friendly state.'
North Carolina can't have it both ways either it is the 'most military-friendly state in America' or it is not.
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Virginian-Pilot on April 9, 2009.
ReplyDeletehttp://hamptonroads.com/2009/04/other-campaign
MARC-PRIDE citizens:
ReplyDeletePlease take note of the following message from the Virginians Against the OLF -
From: Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Date: Apr 10, 2009 10:42am
Subject: VAOLF Upcoming Events
Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field
Post Office Box 112 ~ Capron, Virginia 23929
Dear Friends,
There are a couple of events coming up that we wanted you to be aware of.
On Wednesday, April 15th, The Wakefield Ruritan Club will be hosting the 61st Annual Shad Planking at the Wakefield Sportsman's Club. This annual event historically draws leading political candidates for every major elected office, and this year will be no different. All four candidates for governor will be attending as well as those running for lieutenant governor. Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field will again have a booth and will be handing out information and answering questions. Please come out and support VAOLF at this event. The more OLF opponents the political candidates see, the more we can influence their position. More information is available at www.shadplanking.com.
On Tuesday, April 28th at 7pm, the U.S. Navy will have representatives at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Jarratt, Virginia to answer questions about the proposed OLF. All are welcome and strongly encouraged to attend. The Navy has stressed that this will be a question and answer session and not a debate. Please come prepared to ask questions. Bethlehem Baptist Church is located at 26843 Grizzard Road in Jarratt.
Also, you may have noticed some changes to the website. It is still under reconstruction and will be complete within the next week. We appreciate your patience during the time it has gone without updates, as we have been working on changing its appearance and capabilities. The OLF video will be posted to the site and we will even have online donation capabilities! A notice will go when it is complete.
Thanks to all of you who continue to support VAOLF. Please continue writing our elected officials as well as candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. We look forward to seeing all of you at one of the upcoming events.
Warmest regards,
Tony Clark
Chairman, VAOLF
This message was sent from Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field. It was sent from: Tony Clark, P.O. Box 112, Capron, VA 23829.
If anyone is going to be in the vicinity of the Jarratt, VA area on Tuesday evening, April 28th, you may want to drop in on this OLF informaton session that th Navy is sponsoring:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tidewaternews.com/news/2009/apr/22/navy-discuss-olf-jarratt-meeting/
First Citizen
MARC-PRIDE
The following story/commentary appeared in the Charlotte News Observer on May 20th. It shows the reality of the challenge for the OLF.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/1534336.html
First Citizen
MARC-PRIDE
On Tuesday, June 2nd I had the opportunity to share lunch with Ms. Kay Pope and Mr. Tony Clark in Franklin, VA.
ReplyDeleteMs. Pope is a life-long resident of Southampton County, unsuccessfully ran for the Board of Supervisors, is a local business owner, and currently serves on the Franklin-Southampton Futures Alliance – an activity that is focused on the county future. Mr. Clark is the Chairman of the Virginians Against the OLF group. His family is life-long residents of Southampton County and he has recently returned to the area after living in Richmond for a number of years.
Ms. Pope had extended an invitation to me to visit with her to discuss the OLF. Both she and Mr. Clark are opposed to the OLF being sited in Southampton County and I was able to develop a greater appreciation for the basis of the concerns. Mr. Clark believes that JSF will never be suitable for homebasing at Oceana and therefore the future of Oceana is in question….and thus the OLF isn’t really a requirement. He also suggested that the OLF requirement could be mitigated by relocating a number of squadrons to MCAS Cherry Pt.
At the end of the day, neither side of the discussion had relaxed their going in positions, but at least we had talked. Hopefully, it is the precursor to future dialogue. All in all, we had a collegial and professional discussion and I offered the good offices of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance (HRMFFA) to assist them with information and perhaps enabling discussions relative to how a community might negotiate the best possible economic benefit out of an OLF through public-private partnerships to develop business and compatible activities.
First Citizen
MARC-PRIDE
All,
ReplyDeletePlease note that the official Navy OLF website (http://www.olfeis.com/default.aspx) has been updated with some new information.
First Citizen
MARC-PRIDE
OLF MELODRAMA IGNORES NEED FOR TRAINING
ReplyDeleteBy FRANK ROBERTS ~ July 5, 2009
IN ITS JUNE 20 editorial “OLF melodrama moves to Washington,” The Virginian-Pilot correctly characterizes the situation surrounding the Navy’s outlying landing field as melodrama. Since the beginning of the OLF scenario many years ago, there has been an almost universal failure to focus on the relevant centerpiece of the OLF. Some want to cast the entire OLF dynamic in emotionally polarizing rhetoric leveraging arguments about encroachment, failed municipal planning, noise, economics and a variety of other perspectives. Politics from both North Carolina and Virginia has now cast its shadow over the situation. The one truly important aspect, training, remains missing from the dialogue. Landing a high performance jet aircraft traveling more than 130 miles per hour on a moving airfield at sea in the dark of night, and with less than favorable weather, is the most physically and physiologically demanding task ever asked of a pilot. Testing during the Vietnam War showed that pilots’ heart and breathing rates were higher during night carrier landings than during combat operations in dense surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft environments. The most important element that enables Navy pilots to succeed is training. Repetitive training in an environment that replicates as closely as possible the worst possible conditions a pilot may encounter is the critical component of an excellent safety record. To safely land an aircraft aboard a carrier requires the pilot to position his jet in a window that is 10 feet high and 10 feet wide at the point the aircraft crosses the end of the 700-foot-long deck landing strip. During the day, with good weather, the experience is fun and exhilarating in a professionally satisfying way. Even so, the final 20-30 seconds require strict adherence to visual aids on the ship’s flight deck to guide the pilot into that 10-by-10 window. Once the sun sets, the fun and exhilaration end. Without the sensory inputs available during the day, pilots are left to rely totally on the experience gained from hours and hours of training at night. The more closely the training replicates what will be experienced in the worst-case scenarios, the better trained our pilots are. Regrettably, the skills to land safely aboard an aircraft carrier — those to safely fly the aircraft through that 10-by-10 window two seconds prior to touchdown — are perishable, particularly at night. It takes only one failed night landing attempt to appreciate the magnitude of the potential loss of life and property. As long as this nation continues to invest in nuclear-powered aircraft carriers as the centerpiece of its efforts in hot spots around the globe, the Navy will need to provide its pilots the best possible training. As a nation we have both a responsibility and an obligation to provide that training. High-performance military jet aircraft these days cost tens of millions of dollars each. Inadequate, less-than-ideal training for the pilots who operate them places that investment at risk, not to mention the potential risk to personnel. The OLF melodrama is going to continue. Hopefully, when the curtain finally closes on the “exaggeratedly emotional behavior” that defines melodrama, the only really important issue — training — will be left to receive the standing ovation it deserves.
Frank Roberts, a retired Navy fighter pilot, spent 20 years flying F-4s and F-14s, including more than 1,000 aircraft carrier landings, 300 at night. He is executive director of Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, based in Norfolk.
MARC-PRIDE,
ReplyDeleteI am sharing the overly passionate broadcast e-mail of the Chairman of the Virgians Opposed to the OLF with you because it vividly portrays how emotionally polarized this issue is:
Forwarded message ----------
From: Virginians Against the Outlying Landing
Date: Aug 18, 2009 2:04pm
Subject: Candidates ignoring citizen concern on OLF
> Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field
>
> Post Office Box 112 ~ Capron, Virginia 23829
>
> August 18, 2009
>
> Dear friends,
>
>
> As many of you know by now, neither of the two principal candidates for governor have been willing to sit down with us and hear our side of the OLF story. Four months ago, Bob McDonnell looked me squarely in the eyes and promised that he would sit down and listen to our concerns. He insisted that he needed more information and wanted to hear from both sides. For four months, his campaign was either non responsive or played pass-the-buck when we requested they schedule a meeting. Now in August, his campaign has told us he doesn't have the time.
>
>
> The Creigh Deeds campaign flat out ignored our requests for a meeting. A number of email messages to his campaign submitted through his official campaign website were never returned. This past Friday at the Southampton County Fair, I had the opportunity to be introduced to Mr. Deeds. After introducing myself and requesting a meeting with him to discuss our view on the OLF, the candidate told me he didn't have the time, that he only had 81 days left until the election.
>
>
> He was there to ask for our vote, but wasn't willing to take the time to hear our concerns on an issue that is extremely personal and vitally important to thousands of residents across Western Tidewater.
>
>
> I am outraged, and I know many of you are, too.
>
>
> So the question becomes, will we continue to sit back and allow ourselves to be represented at the highest levels of government by professional office seekers whose primary concerns are public opinion polls and focus group ratings? Or will we begin to demand the accountability that we deserve and put individuals in office who are sincere in their desire to represent our best interests?
>
>
> This is an issue that far outweighs the OLF. We live in extremely complex times and face extremely complex issues. If both candidates are unwilling to deal with the OLF, how will they respond to other issues? How will they respond to crisis? Will they demonstrate the same head in the sand attitude they have adopted with the OLF?
>
>
> We live in times that call for more leaders, not more politicians.
>
>
> When that leader emerges, they will have my vote.
>
>
> As of right now, neither candidate does.
>
>
> Tony Clark
>
> Chairman, Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field
>
> This message was sent from Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field. It was sent from: Tony Clark, P.O. Box 112, Capron, VA 23829.
The House receded to the Senate’s OLF provision during the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act conference ; the final provision regarding the OLF:
ReplyDeleteSENATE REPORT 111-35 ACCOMPANYING
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
Secretary of the Navy report on an outlying landing field:
The committee notes the requirement for the Department of the Navy to establish an outlying landing field (OLF) to support the stationing and operation of carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft on the East Coast of the United States within a suitable range of both Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, and Naval Station Norfolk/Chambers Field, Virginia. The OLF will also support training requirements of transient carrier-based aircraft to be stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina. The OLF serves as a critical training facility for pilots to practice aircraft carrier landings with lower risk and under more controlled conditions before conducting highly demanding day and night carrier landings at sea. A new OLF will afford the Department increased scheduling capacity to mitigate current capacity shortfalls, greater operational flexibility, improved safety, and higher training fidelity in operational flight training on the East Coast. The committee is aware that public opposition has been expressed to the Department of the Navy during the preparation of an environmental impact statement evaluating sites for a future OLF in North Carolina and Virginia. The committee expects the Secretary of the Navy to take into consideration the impact on local communities of the placement and operation of an OLF and to examine means to mitigate the impact on those communities. As part of that consideration, the committee directs the Secretary of the Navy to engage and consult with the State of North Carolina and the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as local governments and other public stakeholders, prior to the issuance of a final environmental impact statement and record of decision, to identify ways to mitigate impacts, to evaluate opportunities for economic assistance, and to minimize the land removed from the state tax base. The committee further directs the Secretary of the Navy, prior to the issuance of a final environmental impact statement and record of decision, to provide to the Congressional Defense committees a report containing a review of the aforementioned engagement and consultations, as well as the results of those engagements. The report shall include a description of the measures taken by the Department of the Navy to identify all suitable options for the location of an outlying landing field.