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Live Bombing Pushed To 2009

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By Douglas  Carman | Highlands Today

Published: January 25, 2008

AVON PARK — A spokesman for the Navy said Thursday that the timeline has been pushed back yet again for live bombing operations to begin at the Avon Park Air Force Range.

Jim Brantley, a media relations officer with the Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., said the Navy now expects to begin using live bombs at the range by January or February 2009. He said it was pushed back because the funds –– a "small amount" of $1.5 million –– were not previously available, even though they are now.

The Navy planned to negotiate construction contracts with the Air Force and a contracting agent, which would be awarded by March.

Site development is slated for April or May with the construction of roadways and electronic devices used to score how well the bombers are doing. The last of the instrumentation should be installed sometime during the fall.

Preparations for using the real, live 500 to 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs have been pushed back several times over the years. In October, Brantley said that construction was supposed to begin this month and live bombing would have began this summer.

Brantley said it's typical for a few delays to happen when requesting money on such projects, though he had to speak with "higher-ups" to determine the specific cause of the funding hang-ups and he could not get that information by press time. Now that the funds are secured, he said there should be no further delays unless something interferes with the construction.

"That's the only thing that would slow us down now, say if some hurricanes came through Florida," he said.

The Navy has been pushing to use live bombs to better train their forces because, as Brantley stated, "we need to train as we fight." Though he declined to say how large a building such bombs could destroy, he said the larger ones to be used in the operations could leave sizable craters in the ground.

He added that they were only using laser-guided smart bombs. No "dumb fire" bombs would be used.

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