Wright Field - History

History

In 1917 Wilbur Wright Field was opened to train pilots and gunners during World War I, followed shortly by the creation of the adjacent Fairfield Air Depot, in what is today Fairborn, Ohio. The flying field extended more than two miles to the west and included nearly all the prairie and flood plain behind Huffman Dam. The Fairfield Air Depot was built in a triangular between the field's administrative and barracks buildings and the Fairfield Cemetery, inside the right angle formed by what are now Wright Avenue and Schuster Road. In nearby Dayton, McCook Field was built as a wartime facility for aviation engineering purposes, but was small (its runway was less than 2,000 feet (610 m) in length), had no room for expansion, and its facilities were cheaply made of wood and considered a fire risk.

In 1924, the Dayton community purchased 4,500 acres (1,821 ha) that included all of the leased area on which Wilbur Wright Field was located and 750 acres (300 ha) of new property in Montgomery County to the southwest, now in the present city of Riverside. The combined area was named "Wright Field" to honor both Wright Brothers. A new installation (with permanent brick facilities) was constructed on the new ground to replace McCook Field and was dedicated 12 October 1927. Transfer of 4,500 tons of engineering materiel, office equipment and other assets at McCook to Wright Field began on March 25, 1927, and was 85% complete by June 1, moved in 1,859 truckloads.

On 19 June 1918, Lt. Frank Stuart Patterson, son and nephew of the co-founders of National Cash Register, was killed in the crash of his Airco DH.4M, AS-32098, at Wilbur Wright Field during a flight test of a new mechanism for synchronizing machine gun and propeller, when a tie rod broke during a dive from 15,000 feet (4,600 m), causing the wings to separate from the aircraft. Wishing to recognize the contributions of the Patterson family, the area of Wright Field east of Huffman Dam (including Wilbur Wright Field, Fairfield Air Depot, and the Huffman Prairie) was made a separate air station and renamed Patterson Field on 6 July 1931, in honor of Lt. Patterson. Patterson Field became the location of the Materiel Division of the Air Corps and a key logistics center. Wright Field, incorporating the remainder of the base west of the Huffman Dam, became synonymous in the 1930s and World War II as the research and development center of the Air Corps.

Early in 1941, anticipating the testing of the Douglas B-19 heavy bomber, the decision was made to install two concrete runways at Wright Field (Northwest-Southeast next to the flight line, and East-West along the southern edge of the property). The Army Corps of Engineers was assigned the project, with the Price Brothers Company of Dayton named the prime contractor. Construction began in June 1941 and was completed by the middle of February 1942. During construction, intelligence reports indicated that the German Luftwaffe was experimenting with inclined runways, and construction of an inclined runway with a 10% grade was added to the Wright Field project, more or less perpendicular to the NW-SE runway. Completed shortly after the standard runways, it became a familiar sight to Dayton residents. A triangular arrangement of runways was completed in 1944 with the addition of a SW-NE runway connecting the other two, on which the present National Museum of the United States Air Force is located.

On December 15, 1945, the bases administratively merged again, along with Dayton Army Air Field in Vandalia, Ohio, and Clinton County AAF in Wilmington, Ohio, collectively called the Army Air Forces Technical Base. The latter two bases were discontinued in 1946, and the base briefly became the Air Force Technical Base in December 1947.

On January 13, 1948, the two fields formally adopted the name Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. 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.

In 1951, congestion at the base forced all local flying activities to be limited to the Wright Field (Area B) flight line, which in February 1958 was closed to all jet aircraft. Even so, the next year Area B still experienced 44,699 takeoffs and landings, or 24% of the air activity at WPAFB. Finally, noise and congested airspace forced all military aircraft operations at Area B to cease in 1963. General aviation activities, typically of single-engine civilian aircraft, continued until the early 1970s. The flight line has been temporarily opened since 1971 on a case-by-case basis to accommodate the final flights/arrivals/landings of aircraft destined for the collection of the Air Force Museum, now the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The museum opened its present location in 1971 in the triangular runway area of the base and has since expanded, and maintains an annex in a hangar on Wright Field proper.