History
The base is named after the Wright brothers, who used the Huffman Prairie portion of what became Wright-Patterson as their testing ground, and Frank Stuart Patterson, son and nephew of the co-founders of National Cash Register. Wishing to recognize the contributions of the Patterson family (owners of National Cash Register) the area of Wright Field east of Huffman Dam (including Wilbur Wright Field, Fairfield Air Depot, and the Huffman Prairie) was renamed Patterson Field on July 6, 1931, in honor of Lt. Frank Stuart Patterson, who was killed in 1918 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 his Airco DH.4 .
In 1948, the nearby Wright Field and Patterson Field were merged under the name Wright-Patterson AFB. The former Wright Field became Area B of the combined installation, and the former Patterson Field became Area C. In 1951, the Air Force created a separate command for research and development called the Air Research and Development Command. The Wright Air Development Center was responsible for principal elements of flight testing, engineering and laboratories. Some of the test pilots working at the base, such as Neil Armstrong and Ed White, went on to become NASA astronauts.
Read more about this topic: Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)