WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. (AP) — The Navy is planning to begin field carrier landing practice at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore
Officials say a detachment of twin-engine turboprop E-2 Hawkeye and C-2 Greyhound aircraft will conduct landing practice from June 16 to June 27.
About 200 aviators, air crew and maintenance personnel, along with eight aircraft from Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 120, will travel from Naval Station for the operations.
The Navy agreed last year to pay the space agency nearly $2 million a year so it can practice aircraft-landing maneuvers at Wallops. The Navy had said it would conduct up to 20,000 passes at Wallops annually.
Using Wallops allows the Navy to stop sending Norfolk-based squadrons to Jacksonville, Fla., to practice landings at a Navy airfield there.
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