In Vance Air Force Base’s nearly 70 years of existence, 31,763 pilots have earned their wings there.

During those nearly seven decades, Vance has seen many changes. Training aircraft have come and gone, women began earning their wings there in the 1970s and civilian contractors began providing aircraft maintenance and base services in the early 1960s. Even squadrons have come and gone.

Through it all, the base has continued to perform its primary mission, training the next generation of military pilots, and has done it well.

Last week saw the final flight of the 3rd Fighter Training Squadron, the unit conducting Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals training at Vance.

The 3rd FTS is scheduled to officially be retired at a ceremony in early December.

In May, the Air Force announced plans to discontinue the IFF programs at Vance and Laughlin AFB, Texas, and to consolidate the 40-day advanced pilot training course at three bases — Randolph AFB, Texas; Sheppard AFB, Texas; and Columbus AFB, Miss. The Air Force called it a cost-cutting move.

In the wake of the announced closure of the Vance IFF mission, Oklahoma Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn and 3rd District Rep. Frank Lucas, wrote a letter to Air Force officials seeking a detailed cost analysis of the expected savings.

In a statement issued last week by his communications director, Jared Young, Inhofe decried the end of the IFF mission at Vance, but pledged to continue to work to support the base and to try to bring new missions here.

Inhofe’s support has been vital to Vance in the past, his efforts bringing millions of dollars of much-needed military construction projects to the base.

It is never good to lose a mission, but this one comes with a silver lining. The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure commission decision that sent IFF to Vance also allocated money for improvements in ramp space as well as a new building to house the 3rd FTS.

That infrastructure improvement strengthens the base’s current mission and provides room for future expansion.

Since the 1995 BRAC scare that saw Vance placed on the closure list for a time before it was spared in the commission’s final report, a great deal of hard work has been done at the local, state and national levels to keep Vance growing and thriving. This effort will continue despite the loss of the 3rd FTS.

We question the wisdom of taking the IFF mission from Vance, since the base has shown itself to be the most cost-efficient in terms of pilot training, but we salute the work done by the students and IPs of the 3rd since it stood up at Vance in spring 2007. Since then, the squadron has trained 30 to 40 fighter and bomber pilots annually, with Vance IFF grads posting a 100 percent success rate in their follow-on training.

You can’t do better than that.