{"id":6387,"date":"2009-09-18T11:17:58","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T17:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=6387"},"modified":"2009-09-18T11:19:02","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T17:19:02","slug":"tacos-get-a-new-mission-without-fighter-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/09\/tacos-get-a-new-mission-without-fighter-jets\/","title":{"rendered":"“Tacos” get a new mission — without fighter jets"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"New

New Mexico National Guard logo<\/p><\/div>\n

The 150th Fighter Wing has been reassigned by the Pentagon to a new mission with the 58th Special Operations Unit<\/h4>\n

The New Mexico Air National Guard unit, called the\u00a0“Tacos” since the late 1940s,\u00a0has\u00a0known it was losing all 21 of its F-16s since April.\u00a0Now, they’ll inherit a fleet of 60 aircraft, including four CV-22 Ospreys<\/a> and helicopters, that the governor could dispatch to state emergencies or on rescue missions.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, they learned about their new role with the 58th Special Operations Unit, and that they will remain stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

The 58th trains about 2,200 troops a year in combat search and rescue, and employs more than 1,800 people. The Department of Defense’s decision to move the Tacos to the unit could accelerate the retirement of the F-16s, but will likely save 1,092 jobs, according to the Albuquerque Journal.<\/a><\/p>\n

A third of those are full-time guardsmen.<\/p>\n

The unit is led by Major General Kenny Montoya,\u00a0 who was not immediately available for comment on the new mission.<\/p>\n

The state’s congressional delegation, led by Rep. Martin Heinrich<\/a>, D-N.M., had made finding a new mission for the Tacos — officially the 150th Fighter Wing<\/a> — one of their top priorities since April.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Heinrich issued told reporters that challenges lay ahead.<\/p>\n

“My goal was to try to keep them flying so that in the future they can get back into fighter aircraft,” Heinrich said.\u00a0 “But there’s still going to be a lot of challenges moving forward, because what the 150th does now is very different from what the special operations wing does. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”<\/p>\n

The Tacos had hoped to get a new fighter jet mission, but earlier this year, the Pentagon, decided to reduce the number of F-22 Raptors it was purchasing and speed up the retirement of the wing’s F-16s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Mexico’s Air National Guard unit, called the “Tacos,” will inherit a fleet of 60 aircraft, including four CV-22 Ospreys and helicopters, that the governor could dispatch to state emergencies or on rescue missions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-6387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}