Can you give us an explanation of that? Admiral PERRY. Mr. Chairman, among other things there, again I can refer to my itemized breakdown. You have a condition out there where you have extremes in temperature and everything else. I am afraid $10.50 compared to $9 or even $8 per square yard might appear high. But conditions at Fallon are such that you will have to pay more for the job than you would, let us say, at San Francisco or the vicinity of San Francisco. Mr. DAVIS. We are informed that the cost of concrete, for instance, at Luke and at Nellis for the Air Force has been $8 and $9 per square yard respectively, which is substantially under the figure we have here. Are there sufficient differences in conditions among those three locations which would explain that much of a differential? Admiral PERRY. As I say, this is our best engineering guess at this time. We have gone into this rather thoroughly on every item which you see here. When we came in with these original estimates, Mr. Chairman, of course we didn't have all the engineering data, plans, and specifications prepared at that time such as we have at the present time. I just feel that $10.50 is a good figure for Fallon, Nev. If I am high the Government gets the benefit. HANGAR Mr. DAVIS. What are you using for a hangar at Fallon now? Captain LAMB. We have a World War II hangar. I saw it in December. It was about ready to collapse at that time. With jet aircraft in the desert you have to take them inside of hangars to do work on them, because immediately that you start to run an engine you suck in some sand or rock and you will have a broken engine, where you have replacement in the neighborhood of $40,000. Therefore, all maintenance work must be done under cover. BOQ AND MESSING FACILITIES Mr. DAVIS. BOQ and messing facilities would be completely standard facility for the Navy? Captain LAMB. Yes, sir. Mr. HAND. IS $6,640 per officer in addition to collateral equipment of $575 per officer a standard cost? Captain LAMB. That is the price which was set up in the authorization law. Admiral PERRY. Your standard price for that, Mr. Hand, is $5,000 a unit, that is $5,000 a man, without messing. Actually the way this station is designed, and this new breakdown will show it to you, we are building barracks for the men, and bachelor quarters for the officers, and we are making one subsistence building which will serve both the men who live in the barracks and the officers who live in in the BOQ. The new breakdown would be for the subsistence building alone. I think I am reading them correctly here, it would be $391,000. 3. That is the breakdown I am going to give you to replace this sheet It is based upon more complete information which we have at the present time than we had when this original sheet of October 5 was prepared. Mr. HAND. I am looking at sheet No. 10, under the heading "Basis of Estimate." It states "Bachelor officers quarters and messing facilities: (a) building 100 officers at $6,640 per officer, $664,000. (b) Collateral equipment, 100 officers at $575 per officer, total $58,000." My question is whether that cost is a standard cost for facilities of that kind or whether it is higher. Admiral PERRY. No, sir. If we were actually designing this building for 100 officers, in a well-populated area, the cost would be $5,000 per officer. But we are not doing that, sir; we are not putting this building in a well-populated area. As I explained a few moments ago, we are actually not designing a messing facility-and, incidentally, when I say $5,000 it should be $6,260, because when you include messing facilities it is $5,000 plus $1,260. We are actually making one subsistence building to take care of the messing of men and officers combined. We will only build living or rooming space for the officers separately. Mr. HAND. Do you have any request in here for recreational facilities? Captain LAMB. No, sir. DESIRABILITY OF SITE Mr. HAND. It will be anticipated that you will be back with a request for such facilities in view of the isolated location for this station? Captain LAMB. Yes, sir. Mr. HAND. It seems to me that in the course of your statement you have named a great many disadvantages of this station. Are you satisfied that the advantages of this location and its nearness to already existing targets overcome the disadvantages of isolation, climate, heat waves, and that sort of thing? Captain LAMB. For operations it is an ideal station for the Navy, sir. I have talked with the commander, Air Force Pacific, this past winter, commander of airbases, west coast, and they all consider this the most important station for operational training on the west coast; All of our air groups prior to going out to Korea have taken their final training there. Mr. HAND. They have taken it at the existing facilities? Captain LAMB. Yes, sir. Mr. HAND. You mean you have been training the Korean fliers there? Captain LAMB. Yes, sir. It is our postgraduate course for carrier pilots before they go aboard the carrier. Mr. HAND. You have been training them with the presently existing facilities? Captain LAMB. Under the most difficult conditions. Mr. HAND. If the station was of such ideal character for this purpose, why was it abandoned or allowed to deteriorate? Captain LAMB. It was wrapped up in the demobilization plan and we did not anticipate the rapid increase in modern aircraft which has taken place in the last 5 to 10 years. Mr. HAND. Was there any attempt made at maintenance at all? Captain LAMB. No, sir. We now have a new 10,000-foot runway in there, Mr. Hand. Mr. HAND. When was that built? Captain LAMB. With 1952 funds. We do have ammunition storage there, fuel storage. Our great trouble has been trying to conduct this advanced training in metropolitan areas or in heavily populated areas. For the advance training we have to go out into the desert country or we will not be able to give this training to pilots who are going right into action. Mr. HAND. What is the size of the hangar which is presently there? Mr. HAND. What distance from the station are the targets? Captain LAMB. Within 15 to 50 miles. We have a chart here which shows exactly where they are, sir. Captain DAVISON. Air-to-air-gunnery range is at the north of the station. They can fire over this uninhabited area without hazard to people on the surface. We also have air-to-ground targets in these three designated danger areas which are located at a convenient distance so that as soon as you are airborne you are in a position to start gunnery practice. They have stations for ground observers to observe dive action, also, and the distance by which the projectiles miss the target or whether they hit it. Mr. HAND. What is the general nature of the construction and the general nature of the problem of maintenance of the target area? Captain DAVISON. There is no great requirement for maintenance except initially you build a small shelter of some kind for the people to stand under from the sun. You erect a marker by which you can measure off the angular errors of the projectiles, bombs, and rockets, and there is no cost of decontamination of these areas which would be a problem at other locations. Where you fire live ammunition you have a certain percentage of duds. The area then is unusable for other purposes. Here we can just leave them lay. Mr. HAND. The purpose of that question was to explore item D of sheet 4 of the justifications which states "The Navy has a large investment in targets conveniently located in the vicinity of Fallon and is able to maintain and operate these targets economically with personnel based there." I was therefore wondering what was the nature of the large investment and the maintenance problem. Captain DAVISON. The maintenance problem is principally getting your observation parties to and from the target areas, the location and positioning of your targets. At this target to the south of the station we have old tanks, trucks, and such targets as were encountered in Korea for the purpose of realism. The investment is less in the nature of property improvement than that of the nonintrinsic value. of the air space which, as you see, is clear of the airways which cross Nevada and which in other parts of the country is not available. It is priceless. Mr. HAND., How far is it to the Stead Air Force Base? Captain DAVISON. That is north of Reno, approximately 10 miles north of Reno, and about 50 miles from the air-to-air range, and about 70 to 75 miles on the average from the air-to-ground ranges. Mr. HAND. What is the reason, Captain, of not advising us now. of your recreation needs? Čaptain LAMB. That is all being constructed from savings on past construction. Projects which have been declared nonessential or projects which we have reprogramed. We are taking it out of our own bank and we haven't enough money there. Mr. HAND. Recreation facilities, when and if they come, will come out of newly appropriated funds? Captain LAMB. Yes, sir. (Discussion held off the record.) Mr. HAND. Is this station designed to be used by anybody else except the Navy for this particular purpose? Captain LAMB. It is designed only for the use of the Navy, sir. We cooperate with the Air Force. If they had a problem and we have sufficient room, we would certainly cooperate in every way possible to assist them. Similarly they try to assist us. Mr. HAND. What do they do at Stead? Is that a target base or a different type? Captain LAMB. I think it is part of their training command. Mr. HAND. Do they use a target area in connection with their operations at Stead? Captain LAMB. I believe they do, yes. They are going into extensive construction at Stead in their proposed bill for this year. The runways are not suitable for jet operation now. They have no barracks there at Stead. Presently they are hiring the hotel at Reno. All of their enlisted men are quartered there. They have to transport them daily back and forth to the field. Until that base is built up it is not even satisfactory for the Air Force. Mr. HAND. Do I understand you then to say that the Air Force is contemplating considerable additional construction there? Captain LAMB. Yes, sir. They will have to if they intend to maintain it as a jet field, sir. Mr. HAND. How about medical facilities, Captain, in view of the isolation of the base? Are they coming later? Captain LAMB. We have a small dispensary in the operations building at present. It is inadequate. We have a project in our 1955 program for a dispensary at Fallon. Mr. HAND. Approximately how far is this base from the Pacific Ocean? Captain LAMB. About 250 to 275 miles. USE OF OTHER BASES Mr. CEDERBERG. Do I understand correctly that the planes which come in here and use this particular base are carrier-based planes? Captain LAMB. They are going to carriers, sir. They have possibly been forming up in a group at one of the master jet fields at Alameda. They may have been down in San Diego forming up as a group. They have gone through all of their training. They have become a team. We are going to send them out to the carrier. Before they go to the carrier they have to get in this final advanced training in gunnery. Then we send them over to Fallon for 2 to 3 weeks' training, and then right out to the carrier, and from the carrier they are flown directly to the bomb line in Korea and start operations. Mr. CEDERBERG. How many weeks a year to you anticipate using this base? Captain LAMB. Continuously. Mr. CEDERBERG. I note you have a letter from the Air Force stating they have no facilities which would be suitable for joint use. Is that correct? Captain LAMB. Yes. Mr. CEDERBERG. Do you know whether or not the air base at Indian Springs, which is part of the base used for these atomic tests, will be continued in use? What will happen to that installation? Captain LAMB. I do not know at the present time. I will find out and supply it for the record, sir. (The information requested is as follows:) INDIAN SPRINGS AIR FORCE BASE, INDIAN SPRINGS, NEV. This Air Force facility is located 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nev. It is heavily utilized as an air gunnery staging base in conjunction with the Nellis Air Force Base at Las Vegas, where 14,000 to 15,000 hours per month are flown, the majority of which are devoted to aerial gunnery. In addition, this activity also supports detachments of the Air Force Research Development Command. At present a nondirectional radio homing beacon is in operation. A control tower is in operation from 0600 to 1800 hours daily and on request after 1800. The field elevation is 3,123 feet. There are 3 concrete runways, each 6,600 feet in length. Off the ends of each runway are hills rising from 300 feet to 800 feet high and ranging from 1 mile to 5 miles distant. The Air Force plans call for the continued utilization of the Indian Springs Field as a gunnery staging base and have indicated through formal Navy requests that it would be impossible for the Air Force to support naval aviation gunnery on the Nellis gunnery ranges. It would not be practical for the Navy to use the Nellis Air Base satellite fields for operation to and from present naval gunnery ranges because of the great distances to be covered in jet aircraft. The support rendered the Atomic Energy Commission consists chiefly of personnel and material air transport for technicians and supervisors connected with AEC projects in this area as well as very important personnel visiting in this area. This support is a minor portion of the mission of Indian Springs Air Force Base. Mr. CEDERBERG. Would it also be possible to find out what happens and what use is made of Indian Springs when the atomic tests are not in use, because having been out there it seems to me that when these tests are not being conducted that we have an airbase which has many fine facilities which ought to be made available to someone. If the Navy can't use it possibly the Air Force, instead of spending this money at Stead, which I understand is not part of your problem, could go into Indian Springs, because it does not seem sensible to me to have an airbase down there which is not in continuous use. Captain LAMB. The only possible reason I can think of at the present time, sir, is that possibly Indian Springs is part of the Atomic Energy Committee's setup. Mr. CEDERBERG. We don't mind working with the Atomic Energy Committee. We are in the same fight. These tests by atomic energy people are not going on continuously. When they are not going on it seems we have a base from which we could fly planes for practice purposes, and certainly there is plenty of land available around there to use for target areas. We ought to go into that. They |