EDWARDS EXPECTS TO HIRE AND BUILD.

Byline: JIM SKEEN Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE -- Edwards' near future will include a modest employment gain, a new runway and a continued focus on supporting the War on Terror, according to the base's commander.

A major test effort to get the F-22A fighter ready to take its place in the Air Force inventory is winding down, but Edwards is gearing up for the arrival of the first F-35 joint strike fighters, a multiservice aircraft program that will employ several hundreds of workers.

``We're in a lull right now. The F-35 will bring that back up,'' Maj. Gen. Curtis Bedke said last week. ``The JSF is the biggest program to come to Edwards in a long, long time.''

Many of the workers for the F-35 program will come from other programs that are winding down, so there will not be a big influx of workers.

About 11,500 people work on the base, making it the Antelope Valley's largest employment center.

The base's military personnel have dipped from about 3,000 to 2,150, with the biggest change from converting 900 military positions into about 450 civilian positions.

Because of its unique test mission, Edwards is home to a wide variety of aircraft with which maintenance workers must become familiar. Often by the time a military person gains experience, that person either leaves the service or is assigned to a new unit.

By switching to civilian positions, Edwards can avoid the rotation of personnel that is common in the military, Bedke said.

The reduction of the military work force has prompted the base to lower its number of housing units.

The base has 1,366 housing units, but it will drop that number to 797 units. Much of the base's housing stock is aging and becoming increasingly more costly to maintain.

The base started a program in the 1990s to replace its older housing stock with newer units.

Physically, the biggest change at Edwards will be a $103million project to overhaul the base's main runway.

``It's 50 years old. It is just wearing out,'' Bedke said.

The project will involve the construction of a temporary asphalt runway. As air traffic shifts over to the temporary runway, the old runway will be rebuilt in two stages.

That project will take about three years, Bedke said.

The base is focused, and will remain focused, on supporting military personnel in combat, both in terms of test programs and on an individual level.

Examples of that commitment include putting the unmanned Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft out into the combat arena -- even though it was in the early phases of initial flight test -- and providing rapid turnaround on requests to test additional weapons delivery capabilities for aircraft such as the F-117 stealth fighter and the F-16 fighter.

``The purpose of Edwards is not to test airplanes. It is to get combat capabilities out to the warfighters,'' Bedke said.

The focus on combat capabilities extends down to individual airmen who need to have their warfighting skills ready. In 1998, there were 66 people deployed from Edwards to spots around the world; in 2001, in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, that number shot up to 459.

Last year, there were 491 people deployed. The airmen are sent out in ones and twos to blend in with other units overseas, Bedke said.

``If you're not deployable in this Air Force, we can't use you,'' Bedke said.

One of Bedke's messages is there are opportunities for small businesses to work with Edwards. During a period from October 2005 to June of this year, $78.7million in contracts went to large corporations, but $96.3million in contracts went to small businesses.

``You don't have to be a huge, megacorporation to be a part of what we need to get done,'' Bedke said.

james.skeen@dailynews

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