For now, Navy cancels search for landing field

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http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/now-navy-cancels-search-landing-field



For now, Navy cancels search for landing field
By Dianna Cahn
The Virginian-Pilot
© November 20, 2013

The Navy has canceled its long and controversial search for a new landing field to be used by fighter pilots from Oceana Naval Air Station - at least for now.

In a decision that was welcomed by the communities that could have been affected, the Navy announced Tuesday that it was abandoning a draft environmental study of five potential landing practice sites in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.

"It felt like an early Christmas present from the Navy," said Linda Warren, a resident of Gates County, N.C., who would have lost her home on the family's 100-year-old farm if the site there had been selected. "It came real close to taking a lot of people's homes around here."

The Navy said it needs first to examine where on the East Coast its newest generation of fighter jets will be based before it can look at what training requirements are needed. It will be years until the Navy's version of the Joint Strike Fighter is operational, and the environmental impact study for where to base those jets has been delayed from 2014 to 2017, said Ted Brown, a spokesman for the Navy's Fleet Forces Command.