[Tommy]

My last job in the Air Force was as commander of the 100th Flying Training Squadron flying T-37 and T-38 aircraft out of Williams Air Force Base. Williams was started in 1941 when it was about 25 miles from Phoenix, Arizona. When I was first assigned there in 1983 it was still more than five miles from the nearest fast food restaurant in Mesa, AZ. It's only neighbor was the GM testing area next door. GM and Air Force leaders worked together to discourage the development of residential areas nearby as they were sure to complain about the noise from both.

Due to the good weather in Arizona, Williams was the most productive of the five Air Force bases that trained new pilots for the Air Force. So as increasing civilian air traffic began to compete for more direct routes through Air Force training air space, the Air Force negotiated small changes to keep Williams viable. By 1990 developers were lobbying local politicians to approve development much closer to the base, and we knew they would soon start complaining about the “sounds of freedom” we enjoyed every day. It was about that time that Air Force leadership decided they needed to close one of the five pilot training bases for budget reasons.

You might think the most productive and cost effective pilot training base would be the last one they would close, but you would be wrong. They decided to close Williams in 1991 for three reasons. They knew that civil aviation pressure on their airspace would continue to grow. They knew noise complaints would begin to impact flight operations. And they knew the economy of the Phoenix metropolitan area would be far less affected than any of the smaller towns, like Lubbock, Texas, that hosted the other four pilot training bases. And so it closed.

While the impact of closing or restricting operations at a race track affects many people, closing the most cost effective pilot training base in the Air Force affected the pocketbooks of every tax payer. Like the popular T-shirt says, “I used to be a people person, but people ruined it.”