While the Montana Air National Guard (MANG) held a briefing yesterday about the first F-15 leaving Montana and heading to Fresno, California, the folks in Fresno held a celebration when the first F-15 arrived from Montana.

When you’re winning you can have a celebration, so pop the cork on that bottle of bubbly, Fresno – your leaders beat Montana’s leaders in the fight for jets.

More F-15s are on the way to Fresno with the last planes leaving Montana by October. That means Montana will not be a “fighter unit” for the first time in about 66 years – 66 years.

The local newspaper and television station have stories about the briefing and the move. You can read the Great Falls Tribune story HERE. KRTV (CBS) has a nice package that you can read/watch HERE.

As a consolation, Montana is “scheduled” to have eight C-130 cargo planes by next spring. Montana is also scheduled to lose about 80 jobs according to the Great Falls Tribune, “but not as many as originally on the table, according to spokeswomen for Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus” which is a nice way to “spin” the loss of jobs that happened on their watch. Continue reading →