McConnell Air Force Base (IATA: IAB, ICAO: KIAB, FAA LID: IAB) is a United States Air Force base located four miles (6 km) southeast of the central business district of Wichita, a city in Sedgwick County, Kansas, United States. The base was named in honor of Wichita brothers Fred and Thomas McConnell, both Air Force pilots and World War II veterans. It is the home of Air Mobility Command's 22d Air Refueling Wing (22 ARW), Air Force Reserve Command's 931st Air Refueling Group (931 ARG), and the Kansas Air National Guard's 184th Intelligence Wing (184 IW).
McConnell's primary mission is to provide global reach by conducting air refueling and airlift where and when needed. The Commander of the 22d ARW is Colonel Ricky N. Rupp, the Vice-Commander is Colonel Douglas K. Lamberth and the Command Chief is Chief Master Sergeant Michael H. Edwards.
Famous quotes containing the words air, force and/or base:
“Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain’s door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.”
—Thomas Buchanan Read (1822–1872)
“Science is unflinchingly deterministic, and it has begun to force its determinism into morals. On some shining tomorrow a psychoanalyst may be put into the box to prove that perjury is simply a compulsion neurosis, like beating time with the foot at a concert or counting the lampposts along the highway.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“In the land of turkeys in turkey weather
At the base of the statue, we go round and round.
What a beautiful history, beautiful surprise!
Monsieur is on horseback. The horse is covered with mice.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)