By APP Staff writer Kala Kachmar -

Air Force officials are expected to announced Thursday whether Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst will be the recipient of a fleet of new KC-46A air refueling planes, a decision that New Jersey officials say would ensure the long-term sustainability of the base.

In June, the Air Force narrowed the pool of bases to five. The one that's given the planes would be the second active duty base in the country to be selected and would receive the planes sometime in 2020, according to Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the Air Force.

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As New Jersey's second-largest employer, housing the aircraft would prevent the base from being closed during a future Base Realignment and Closure, a process the Department of Defense uses to reorganize the country's military bases. The DOD has considered closing New Jersey military bases during every round of BRAC since the mid-1990s, said Jeff Sagnip, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th, who represents a large portion of the base.

"It would mean the prospects of the Joint Base remaining robust, ever expanding and would have huge positive implications economically for our area," Smith said. "A mission of this longevity and scope — this will be a decades-long mission — will make the budget cutters look elsewhere.”

Stefanek said she didn't have information on the cost of the planes, and said the Air Force hasn't yet determined the number of planes each base selected would get.

The four other bases in the running include:

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In 2015, KC-10 Extenders — refueling tankers that have been in use since 1981 — were set to be retired, which would have put the Joint Base at risk for closure. Thirty-two of the country's 59 KC10s are housed at the Joint Base, and they account for two-thirds of the base's flying mission.

"We would lose the majority of our aircraft if they were retired and not replaced," Sagnip said. "You lose a lot of people when you lose an airplane."

The planes were saved in the final version of the nation's defense bill, but the Air Force and the Pentagon will have to find a viable solution for replacing the planes in the future, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said while visiting the Joint Base in December 2015.

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The planes are already at about 150 percent of their useful life, and at any given time 15 percent are undergoing repairs, Joint Base officials said last year.

The KC-46 A Pegasus aircraft were developed by Boeing and are being manufactured. The first planes that will be used for training are expected to be delivered to Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma next fall, Stefanek said. The first active duty base to be selected for the aircraft is McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas.

This article originally posted on Jan. 11, 2017, and appeared in the Jan. 12 print edition on Page 3:

http://www.app.com/story/news/military/2017/01/11/joint-base-kc-46-announcement/96458086/