2 EDWARDS SITES LOOKED AT FOR SPY PLANES.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

Air Combat Command is looking at two sites at Edwards as potential homes for a squadron of unpiloted spy planes that would bring 820 people to the Antelope Valley.

The Air Force's Air Combat Command is looking for a site to serve as home for as many as 20 Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft. Edwards officials suggested the squadron could be accommodated at South Base, which housed several hundred people during the developmental flight test of the B-2 stealth bomber in the early 1990s. It is now home to a few dozen people working on B-2, B-1 and B-52 flight test programs.

``We think they would fit in well into South Base,'' said Maj. Stephan O'Connor, chief of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle operations at Edwards. ``They could basically have their own runway.''

The ACC team agreed to consider South Base, but also expressed interest in a potential site in the main base area. O'Connor declined to identify that area, citing uncertainties over its availability.

The Air Combat Command team has already scouted Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio; Beale Air Force Base in Northern California; and Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. It is possible that other candidates will be explored.

Air Combat Command is looking 55,000 square feet of aircraft hangar space, 24,000 square feet to house operations, and 20,000 square feet for maintenance work. The squadron will also need 400 housing units and dormitory space for 130 people.

The squadron would have 820 people, of which all but 10 would be military personnel.

Air Combat Command is expected to make a decision in 2000 on where to locate the Global Hawks.

The Global Hawk aircraft are being built by Ryan Aeronautical in San Diego, a company recently acquired by Northrop Grumman. The aircraft are designed to fly over battlefields, providing commanders with nearly instantaneous intelligence.

Shorter than an F-16 fighter, but with the wingspan of a Boeing 737, the Global Hawk aircraft are designed to fly as high as 65,000 feet and stay there for up to 42 hours at a time. The aircraft will be able to survey 40,000 square miles, an area the size of Illinois.

The Air Force plans to buy 40 of the airplanes by 2015.

Edwards serves as the home for the flight test program for Global Hawk. The program has two aircraft at Edwards and two more are expected to arrive by January.