PEORIA, IL (09/05/2012)(readMedia)-- The Illinois Air National Guard's 182nd Airlift Wing in Peoria will host a ribbon cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. Sept. 8 to open a $11.1 million facility. The new facility will house the 182nd Operations Group.
The 27,700-square-foot facility will house C-130 operations including weapons and tactics, intelligence operations; briefing space; flight planning, safety, and records areas, physical training, life support and survival equipment including space to repair parachutes, life rafts, and other emergency gear. The new facility also includes space for unit administration, aircrew chemical warfare equipment, base command post, base operations and transient passenger waiting area.
The facility was designed under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and sustainable development concepts to achieve optimum resource efficiency, constructability, sustainability and energy conservation, while minimizing adverse impacts to the building and natural environments through all phases of its life cycle.
The 182nd Airlift Wing supports flying operations for eight C-130H3 aircraft and the associated maintenance and support functions. Its mission is to provide air-land and airdrop, command and control, communications, logistics and support services.
The 182nd Airlift Wing has been heavily engaged in overseas contigency operations since Sept. 11, 2001, supporting more 4,500 individual deployments and flying more 35,000 hours, more than 17,500 of which were in direct support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
