List of USAF Strategic Wings Assigned To The Strategic Air Command

List Of USAF Strategic Wings Assigned To The Strategic Air Command

During the tremendous U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC) expansion of the early and mid-fifties, bases become overcrowded, with some of them supporting as many as 90 B-47s and 40 KC-97s. The first B-52 wings were also extremely large - composed of 45 bombers and 15 or 20 KC-135s, all situated on one base. As the Soviet missile threat became more pronounced and warning time became less, SAC bases presented increasingly attractive targets. It was necessary to break up these large concentrations of aircraft and scatter them throughout more bases. Several KC-97 squadrons were separated from their parent B-47 wings and relocated to northern bases. The B-47 dispersal program was a long range one and would be affected primarily through the phase out of wings in the late fifties and early sixties.

With the B-52 force, which was still growing, dispersal became an active program in 1958. Basically the B-52 dispersal program called for larger B-52 wings already in existence to be broken up into three equal-sized wings of 15 aircraft each, with two of them being relocated, normally to bases of other commands. In essence, each dispersed B-52 squadron became a strategic wing. This principle would also be followed in organizing and equipping the remained of the B-52 force. Headquarters USAF established the entire force at 42 squadrons in 1958. Ideally, each B-52 wing would have an air refueling squadron of 10 or 15 aircraft.

By the end of 1958, SAC had activated 14 strategic wings, but only three had aircraft assigned. The others were in various stages of development, with some having only a headquarters and one officer and one airman authorized.”.

Read more about List Of USAF Strategic Wings Assigned To The Strategic Air Command:  Redesignation To AFCON Status

Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, strategic, wings, assigned, air and/or command:

    Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives—from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango—with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists’ stage.
    Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)

    Love’s boat has been shattered against the life of everyday. You and I are quits, and it’s useless to draw up a list of mutual hurts, sorrows, and pains.
    Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930)

    The strategic adversary is fascism ... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.
    Michel Foucault (1926–1984)

    who lives on, lives on
    like the wings of an Atlantic seagull.
    Though he has stopped flying,
    the wings go on flapping
    despite it all,
    despite it all.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    I live for those who love me,
    Whose hearts are kind and true;
    For the Heaven that smiles above me,
    And awaits my spirit too;
    For all human ties that bind me,
    For the task by God assigned me,
    For the bright hopes yet to find me,
    And the good that I can do.
    George Linnaeus Banks (1821–1881)

    Success four flights Thursday morning all against twenty one mile wind started from Level with engine power alone speed through air thirty one miles longest 57 second inform Press home Christmas.
    Orville Wright (1871–1948)

    Under bare Ben Bulben’s head
    In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
    An ancestor was rector there
    Long years ago, a church stands near,
    By the road an ancient cross.
    No marble, no conventional phrase;
    On limestone quarried near the spot
    By his command these words are cut:
    Cast a cold eye
    On life, on death.
    Horseman pass by!
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)