AP, LAS VEGAS: In about five years, Nellis Air Force Base will add a new warplane to its fleet of fighter jets and bombers.
A notice that will appear in Monday's Federal Register calls for 36 of the nation's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets to be produced and delivered to the base between 2009 and 2028.
Military officials have described the F-35 as an air combat workhorse, with versions being developed to meet the future needs of the Marines, Navy and U.S. Air Force.
The 36 warplanes coming to Nellis will be used to train instructor pilots and support the Air Force Weapons School's mission of testing and evaluating state-of-the-art weapons systems and future combat capabilities.
The F-35 tactical fighter jets destined for Nellis will be some of the first off the assembly lines under a multi-billion-dollar program to replace the nation's aging F-16 Fighting Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolt tank killers.
The F-16 and A-10 are both 1970s-vintage aircraft, although some F-16s still are being built for allied countries.
The F-35's base price is about $40 million.
The two-page Federal Register notice calls for five public meetings on the proposal next month in Nevada.
Hangars and workshops will be built at Nellis to accommodate the F-35s beginning in 2007. Construction will take three years, but details about the number of personnel resulting from the basing plan were not available.
“The environmental impact process is expected to take about two years,” Nellis spokesman Mike Estrada said. “This is the same process we did for the F/A-22.”
Nellis has eight F/A-22 Raptors and is expected to receive nine more in the next five or six years, Estrada said.
