12th Flying Training Wing
The 12th Flying Training Wing (12 FTW) is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Education and Training Command, and formerly of the now inactivated Nineteenth Air Force. It is stationed at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. The wing is also the parent organization for the 479th Flying Training Group (479 FTG), a geographically separated unit (GSU) located at NAS Pensacola, Florida.
The 12 FTW is the only unit in the Air Force conducting both pilot instructor training and combat systems officer training. The Wing's predecessor unit, the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing fought in combat during the Vietnam War. It was the host unit at two major air bases in South Vietnam. Its F-4 Phantom II aircraft flew thousands of combat missions between 1965 and 1971, before being withdrawn from combat as part of the United States drawdown of forces in Southeast Asia. Its World War II predecessor unit, the 12th Bombardment Group as part of Twelfth Air Force supported the Allied drive from Egypt to Tunisia during the North Africa Campaign, then reassigned to Tenth Air Force in India and flew most of its missions in Burma between April 1944 and May 1945, supporting the British Fourteenth Army.
The commander of the 12th Flying Training Wing is Col Gerald V. Goodfellow. The Command Chief Master Sergeant is Chief Master Sergeant Avery V. Woolridge.
Famous quotes containing the words flying, training and/or wing:
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—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“When the child is twelve, your wife buys her a splendidly silly article of clothing called a training bra. To train what? I never had a training jock. And believe me, when I played football, I could have used a training jock more than any twelve-year-old needs a training bra.”
—Bill Cosby (20th century)
“I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese
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The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in
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—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)