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New $43 Million Hangar To Be Built At Westover

WAMC

    An aircraft hangar will be built in western Massachusetts where maintenance will be done on the largest planes in America’s military fleet.  The sizable investment by the Pentagon should also help assure the future of a key component of the region’s economy.

   Even on a day when the midday temperature is just 4 degrees, the aircraft maintenance crews at Westover Air Force Reserve base are working outside.  They must do their jobs out in the elements because no hangar on the 80-year old base in Chicopee is large enough for the C-5M Super Galaxy cargo jet.

   But in a few years that will change after construction is finished on an almost $43 million hangar that will be the length of two football fields and 90-feet tall.

    "Having a hanger here we can put an aircraft inside will keep it and our folks out the weather," said Col. David Post, commander of the 439th Maintenance Group at Westover.

     He said the new Regional ISO Maintenance Hangar will improve the working conditions and the efficiency of the 600 aircraft maintainers under his supervision.

  "We can reduce the amount of time to get it back out to do its mission," said Post.

  There are eight C-5Ms permanently based at Westover, but each of the 54 massive cargo jets in the Air Force fleet are flown to the base from time-to-time for required inspections and necessary repairs.

  "Every year we are doing about 26 aircraft a year here," said Post.

   The funds for the new hanger were included in the most recent defense authorization bill. Democratic Congressman Richard Neal of Massachusetts was a member of the conference committee that produced the final legislation.   Westover got more than half the $84 million that was authorized for all building projects at Air Force Reserve bases.

  " On the East Coast there is no more important air base than Westover," said Neal.

   The new hangar will be the latest project to improve and upgrade the base. 

   About 5,000 people are employed at Westover including active and reserve military, civilians, and people who work for one of the 28 tenants of the base.

  "Economically it is a huge generator for western Massachusetts," said Neal.

   Noting that construction to build Westover started in 1939, Chicopee Mayor Richard Kos said the announcement of the new hangar is a great 80th birthday present.

  " We are geting a substantial investments, a substantial committment to Westover," said Kos.

   Groundbreaking for the new hangar is expected to occur in 2020, with construction taking 18 months.

 

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.
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