Wilbur Wright Field


Wilbur Wright Field was a military installation and an airfield used as a World War I pilot, mechanic, and armorer training facility and, under different designations, conducted United States Army Air Corps and Air Forces flight testing. Located near Riverside, Ohio, the site is officially "Area B" of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and includes the National Museum of the United States Air Force built on the airfield.

History

World War I

Wilbur Wright Field was established in 1917 for World War I on of land adjacent to the Mad River which included the 1910 Wright Brothers' Huffman Prairie Flying Field and that was leased to the Army by the Miami Conservancy District. Logistics support to Wilbur Wright Field was by the adjacent Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot established in January 1918 and which also supplied three other Midwest Signal Corps aviation schools. A Signal Corps Aviation School began in June 1917 for providing combat pilots to the Western Front in France, and the field housed an aviation mechanic's school and an armorer's school. On 19 June 1918, Lt. Frank Stuart Patterson at the airfield was testing machine gun/propeller synchronization when a tie rod failure broke the wings off his Airco DH.4M while diving from. Also in 1918, McCook Field near Dayton between Keowee Street and the Great Miami River began using space and mechanics at Wilbur Wright Field. Following World War I, the training school at Wilbur Wright Field was discontinued.
Training units assigned to Wilbur Wright Field
Combat units trained at Wilbur Wright Field
Service units trained at Wilbur Wright Field
1923 records for speed, distance, and endurance were set by an April 16 Fokker T-2 flight from Wilbur Wright Field which used a course around the water tower, the McCook Field water tower, and a pylon placed at New Carlisle. In June 1923, an Air Service TC-1 airship "was wrecked in a storm at Wilbur Wright Field" and by 1924, the field had "an interlock system" radio beacon using Morse code command guidance illuminating instrument board lights. The Field Service Section at Wilbur Wright Field merged with McCook's Engineering Division to form the Materiel Division on 15 October 1926. The Air Service's "control station for the model airway"—which scheduled military flights of the Airways Section—moved to Wilbur Wright Field from McCook Field in the late 1920s.

Redesignations

The Fairfield Air Depot formed when the leased area of Wilbur Wright Field and the Army-owned land of the Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot merged soon after World War I. For an aerial war game of 1929, "Fairfield" was the headquarters of the Blue air force: a Blue "airdrome north of Dayton at Troy" was strafed on May 16, "Dayton" was the May 21 take off site for a round-trip bomber attack on New York, and "target areas at Fairfield" were used for live bombing on May 25. A provisional division was "assembled at Dayton" on May 16, 1931, for maneuvers in which "Maj. Henry H. Arnold, division G-4, had stocks at Pittsburgh; Cleveland; Buffalo; Middletown, Pennsylvania; Aberdeen, Maryland; and Bolling Field to service units as they flew eastward." The depot remained active until 1946.

In 1924, the city of Dayton purchased, the portion of Fairfield Air Depot leased in 1917 for Wilbur Wright Field, along with an additional in Montgomery County to the southwest. The combined area was named Wright Field to honor both Wright Brothers. A new installation with permanent brick facilities was constructed to replace McCook Field and was dedicated on October 12, 1927. The transfer of 4,500 tons of engineering material, office equipment and other assets at McCook Field to Wright Field began on March 25, 1927, and was 85% complete by June 1 after moving 1,859 truckloads. "The Engineering School shut down for the school year 1927-28 at Wright Field, which had the Army Air Corps Museum in Building 12.
By November 1930, "the laboratory at Wright Field" had planes fitted as flying laboratories", and the equipment of the 1929 Full Flight Laboratory was moved to Wright Field by the end of 1931. Materiel Division’s Fog Flying Unit under 1st Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger used the equipment for blind landings.

Patterson Field

named for [|Lt Patterson] was designated on 6 July 1931 as the area of Wright Field east of Huffman Dam. Patterson Field became the location of the Materiel Division of the Air Corps and a key logistics center and in 1935, quarters were built at Patterson Field which in 1939 still "was without runways…heavier aircraft met difficulty in landing in inclement weather." Wright Field retained the land west of the Huffman Dam and became the research and development center of the Air Corps.

Pre-war events

Engineering and flight activities of the two installations after the designation of Patterson Field included numerous aviation achievements and failures prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor:
DateFieldEvent
1932 MayPattersonBlind landings at Patterson Field were conducted by the Fog Flying Unit using a variation of Doolitte's landing system from Mitchel Field.
1933-01WrightBoth metal, two-place, low-wing monoplanes from Consolidated Aircraft crashed during tests.
1933-05PattersonThe Blue air force flew a simulated attack on Fort Knox representing "a rail and supply center".
1933-07WrightThe Materiel Division 1st course on the Mark XV Norden bombsight instructed "a few officers in care, maintenance, and operation"
1935-08-28Wright"Automatic radio navigation equipment comprising Sperry automatic pilot mechanically linked to standard radio compass" tested by Equipment Branch.
WrightThe "Flying Fortress" prototype "Boeing 299 crashed during testing no one had unlocked the rudder and elevator controls", killing the Flying Division chief and Boeing test pilot.
1935-12-31"Device insuring automatic fuel transfer in airplanes with reserve fuel tanks developed by Air Corps Materiel Division."
1936 fallWrightDouglas Aircraft "delivered the first B-18 to Wright Field".
1936-12WrightThe XB-15, "largest bombardment plane to date, from Boeing Plant at Seattle" arrived for testing.
1937-05-20PattersonThe 10th Transport Group with Maj. Hugh A. Bivins commander was activated as the Air Corps' "operational transport unit" with C-27s and C-33s
1937-09-01PattersonThe Air Corps Weather School began—20 of 25 in the first class graduated January 28.
1939-04-20Patterson"Air Corps school for autogiro training and maintenance opens".
1939-05Wright"First 4-blade controllable-pitch propeller known to be built in U. S. is installed on a P-36A".
1939-07-30WrightWorld record : "Maj. C. V. Haynes and Capt. W. D. Old fly Army Boeing B-15 to 8200 ft. with…15½ tons".
1940-06WrightConstruction began at Wright Field for World War II, "the most extensive of all AAF command facilities."
1941-06WrightDayton's Price Brothers Company began constructing 2 concrete USACE runways: NW-SE next to the flight line and E-W along the southern edge of the property. A SW-NE runway was completed in 1944.
1941-06-21PattersonAir Corps Ferrying Command opened an "installation point" at Patterson Field.
1941-10-17PattersonAir Service Command established under the Materiel Division, OCAC, from the "Air Corps Provisional Maintenance Comd" formed on March 15, 1941. ASC was removed from the Material Div on 11 December; "stored, overhauled, and repaired AAF aircraft and equipment" in World War II; and developed a network of base facilities 11 air depots.

AAF and USAF base

The Army Air Forces Technical Base was formed on December 15, 1945, when Wright Field, Patterson Field, Dayton Army Air Field in Vandalia and Clinton County AAF in Wilmington merged. After the USAF was created, the base was renamed Air Force Technical Base in December 1947 and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in January 1948.. The former Wright Field became Area B of the combined installation, the southern portion of Patterson Field became Area A, and the northern portion of Patterson Field, including the jet runway built in 1946-47, Area C.