Moses Lake visits Fairchild crews
The U.S. Air Force provided tours of a KC-135 air tanker from Fairchild Air Force Base during a welcoming ceremony at the Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake Tuesday.
MOSES LAKE - The welcoming ceremony for Fairchild Air Force
Base, moving to the Grant County International Airport in Moses
Lake, brought more people than anticipated.
Tech Sgt. Marty Martin said he probably gave KC-135 Stratotanker
tours to close to 1,000 people.
Originally scheduled to begin at 3 p.m., plane tours started
half an hour earlier because people were already lined up inside
the airport.
MOSES LAKE - The welcoming ceremony for Fairchild Air Force Base, moving to the Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, brought more people than anticipated.
Tech Sgt. Marty Martin said he probably gave KC-135 Stratotanker tours to close to 1,000 people.
Originally scheduled to begin at 3 p.m., plane tours started half an hour earlier because people were already lined up inside the airport.
The line continued to grow as airmen expanded the group number from 15 to 30 people and split between three airmen giving separate tours.
At the back of the line, near the entrance of the airport, Pat Stevens, of Moses Lake, brought his two boys to the plane tour from school.
He said he would have brought his two boys to the event earlier if he knew it was going to be so packed.
"But I had to wait for the kids to get out of school at 3:30 p.m.," he said.
His son, second-grader Jared Stevens said he really liked planes.
"My favorite plane is the fighter plane," he said.
Electric City resident Birdie Hemsley got to see the plane early. She was able to see the boom pod, at the back end of the plane. It is used to transfer fuel between aircraft while in flight.
The 67-year-old laid down in the operator's space and took photographs from inside the KC-135.
Her husband, Lowell Hemsley, 74, came out to the event because he was interested in the military.
"You see all those planes all the time in the air. When I saw these planes up close, it was actually a little bigger than I thought," he said.
Lowell previously flew private aircraft.
The success of the welcoming ceremony demonstrated how deeply rooted Moses Lake is to military life, said Clyde Owen.
"It was unbelievable seeing so many people come out to see these planes that were built in the 1950s," said the 93-year-old Moses Lake resident. "Moses Lake has always been a community that really supports the military and this event just goes to show it."
Owen was the last base commander to close Larson Air Force Base in June 1966. It became the Grant County International Airport.
Mary Gillmore, who brought her family from George, said her father is a retired airman and the welcoming ceremony gave her an opportunity to share stories with her children.
"Being able to show my children the plane was a way to share some of my childhood stories," she said.
The Fairchild Air Force Base are stationing between eight and 16 KC-135 aircraft in Moses Lake while its Spokane runway is being rebuilt, said Lt. Col. Jim O'Connell, the detachment commander at Grant County International Airport.
The airmen are staying in Moses Lake for about 11 months while the runway is being rebuilt.
While in Moses Lake, O'Connell said, about 100 to 150 airmen will stay at dorms at Big Bend Community College.
Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Debbie Doran-Martinez said she saw the Air Force stay as an opportunity to build a relationship with Spokane.
"This is a good way for us to be a great neighbor to Spokane. The airmen are putting our facility to capacity. We hope they will bring their family here and eat out and help the local economy," she said.
The tour ended with speeches from Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., Moses Lake Mayor Jon Lane, Port of Moses Lake Commissioner Kent Jones, Grant County Commissioner Carolann Swartz, Forward Fairchild lead Gregory Bever and Col. Paul Guemmer.
Each one spoke about the economic and cultural impact of the Fairchild Air Force Base coming to Moses Lake.
Hastings talked about how the Air Force's stay in Moses Lake continues the long military history of Central Washington.
"We are all integrated in Central Washington and there's a lot of history involved especially at the Grant County airport," said the congressman.
The Moses Lake mayor said he hopes the airmen will feel welcome in the city.
Fairchild Air Force Base plans to integrate Moses Lake in its domestic and international land defense plans.
"We hope to have several planes here at any given time and be able to deploy to various areas like the Middle East," said Guemmer. "This is a much more larger welcome than what we expected. We want to have transparency and have an open door policy so that people get a sense of how this area will serve Washington state and the national mission."
KC-135s pump close to 1,000 gallons of fuel per minute and can carry 235,000 gallons of fuel, according to Martin.