Boise National Guard could get new military jets. What would the new planes be?
Gowen Field Air National Guard Base, in Boise, is on path to host different war planes later this decade.
The U.S. Air Force announced plans Monday for Gowen Field, which now stocks A-10 Thunderbolt II planes, to transition to F-16 Fighting Falcons in the spring of 2027.
The airport is home base for the Idaho Air National Guard.
“The decision to host the F-16 mission at Gowen Field (Air National Guard Base) came after assessing the area’s ability to facilitate the mission and infrastructure capacity, while accounting for community support, environmental factors and cost,” according to a news release.
The new fighter planes, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., a military contractor, are designed for air-to-air combat and air-to-surface missions, according to the Air Force. Their mobility in the air and flying radius “exceed that of all potential threat fighter aircraft.” The planes cost over $14 million a piece.
By contrast, the A-10 Thunderbolt planes are low-altitude fighter planes often armed with machine guns and incendiary rounds, according to Military.com.
The planes hosted in Boise, which fly from the Boise Airport, have raised concerns about the noise effects on nearby homes in the past.
In 2015, people who lived near the airport said the noise from louder planes taking off disrupted their lives.
The A-10 Thunderbolts travel up to speeds of 420 mph, which is much lower than the F-16s, which can reach 1,500 mph, according to the Air Force.
A few years ago, the Air Force considered stationing a set of F-35s in Boise, which can reach speeds of up to 1,200 mph, according to the Air Force. In 2020, a draft environmental impact statement found that stationing the louder planes could make hundreds of nearby homes unlivable, according to previous Statesman reporting. The Air Force instead moved to station the planes in Wisconsin and Alabama.
The new proposal will undergo a similar environmental analysis, due to be completed in 2025, according to the news release.
Rep. John Gannon, a Boise Democrat who represents residents of the Hillcrest and Sunrise Rim neighborhoods north of the airport, said he is concerned about the potential noise.
“We need to be very careful about implementing any kind of change like this,” Gannon told the Statesman by phone.
He said the Federal Aviation Administration would help purchase homes if studies determine them to be exposed to a certain decibel level and therefore not suitable for residential use. That would mean that some residents near the airport would either have to move out or relocate their homes.
Gannon added that many homes in those neighborhoods are affordable.
“We have an affordable housing crisis in this city, and preserving what affordable housing we have would seem to be a top priority,” he said.
In the past, the Air Force has also proposed consolidating the Idaho Air National Guard’s Boise mission with the Mountain Home Air Force Base. Former Mayor David Bieter and Idaho’s congressional representatives objected to that, and it didn’t happen.
Gannon said he could understand why the Air Force may want to consolidate its plane fleets, given the realities of modern warfare, as seen in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“Ukraine has showed us that warfare has changed dramatically, and air warfare in particular is much more complicated,” he said.
In an email, Boise mayoral spokesperson Maria Weeg said that “We’ve known of the efforts to find a new mission for Gowen Field since the Air Force announced the retirement of the A-10. We learned more about the F-16 mission yesterday and look forward to continuing the conversation about the impact the planes will have on our neighborhoods and their plans to engage the community.”
