Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base is a United States
Air Force base located in Greene
and Montgomery
counties, eight miles (13 km) northeast of the central business district of
Dayton
, Ohio
, United States
. Part of the base is located along the city
limits of Riverside
and is also adjacent to Fairborn
and Beavercreek
. 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, who was killed on
June 19, 1918, in the crash of his Airco
DH.4 at Wilbur Wright Field.
Wright-Patterson AFB is one of the largest, most diverse, and
organizationally complex bases in the Air Force with a long history
of flight test spanning from the Wright Brothers into the
Space Age. It is also the headquarters of the
Air Force Materiel
Command, one of the
major
commands of the Air Force.
"Wright-Patt" (as the base is colloquially
called) is also the location of a major USAF Medical Center
(hospital), the Air Force
Institute of Technology
, and the National Museum of the United States Air
Force
, formerly known as the U.S. Air Force
Museum.
It is also the home base of the
445th
Airlift Wing of the
Air
Force Reserve Command, an
Air
Mobility Command-gained unit which flies the
C-5 Galaxy heavy
airlifter. Wright-Patterson is also the
headquarters of the
Aeronautical Systems Center and
the
Air Force Research
Laboratory.
The entire
base was a census-designated
place at the 2000
census, although statistical data have since included the
portion in totals for Montgomery County for the city of Riverside. As of the
2000 census, the base had a
resident population of 6,656. The permanent party work force at
WPAFB as of September 30, 2005, numbered 5,517 military and 8,102
civilian.
Wright-Patterson is the host of the annual
United States Air Force
Marathon which occurs the weekend closest to the Air Force's
anniversary.
Units located at Wright-Patterson AFB
Geography
Wright-Patterson AFB is located at (39.798708, -84.083988).
According to the
United
States Census Bureau, the U.S. Air Force base has a total area
of 30.5
km² (11.8
sq mi). 30.3 km² (11.7 sq mi) of it is
land and 0.2 km² (0.1 sq mi) of it (0.76%) is water.
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 6,656
people, 1,754 households, and 1,704 families residing on the base.
The
population density was
219.8/km² (569.2/sq mi). There are 2,096 housing units at an
average density of 69.2/km² (179.2/sq mi). The racial makeup
of the base was 76.11%
White,
15.25%
Black or
African American, 0.45%
Native American, 2.30%
Asian, 0.12%
Pacific Islander, 2.09% from
other races, and 3.68%
from two or more races.
Hispanic or
Latino of any race were 4.45% of the
population.
There were 1,754 households out of which 78.1% had children under
the age of 18 living with them, 89.0% were
married couples living together, 6.1% had a female
householder with no husband present, and 2.8% were non-families.
2.6% of all households were made up of individuals and none had
someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average
household size was 3.60 and the average family size was 3.64.
On the base the population was spread out with 42.5% under the age
of 18, 11.6% from 18 to 24, 41.5% from 25 to 44, 4.2% from 45 to
64, and 0.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was
23 years. For every 100 females there were 105.2 males. For every
100 females age 18 and over, there were 104.1 males.
The median income for a household on the base was $43,342, and the
median income for a family was $43,092. Males had a median income
of $30,888 versus $21,044 for females. The
per capita income for the base was
$15,341. About 1.6% of families and 1.8% of the population were
below the
poverty line, including 2.4%
of those under age 18 and none of those age 65 or over.
As of September 30, 2005, Wright-Patterson had base housing
amounting to 2,012 single-family units, 300 units for unaccompanied
enlisted personnel, and 455 visitor or temporary living
units.
History
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 ,
causing the wings to separate from the aircraft.
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.
Between February 1, 1963, and September 30, 1975, the
17th Bombardment Wing of the
Strategic Air Command (SAC) was
assigned to the base's Area A. Consisting of
B-52s of the 34th Bomb Squadron and
KC-135s of the 922nd Air Refueling Squadron, the wing
had a nuclear deterrent mission but also supplied aircraft and
aircrews for the
war in Southeast
Asia.
Today, as in the early 1900s, Wright-Patterson is where weapons
systems are tested and modified. Missions range from
logistics management, research and development,
education, flight operations, and many other defense related
activities.
Wright-Patterson AFB is the home to the
Air Force
Institute of Technology, an educational institution that supports the Air
Force and the Department of Defense. It also contains the
USAF's high-security National Air & Space Intelligence Center,
where in the cold-war era captured Soviet MIGs were brought to what
was then known as the Foreign Technology Division for disassembly
and testing. Wright Field is also home to a zero-time nuclear
reactor, built during the Cold War, but never taken critical.
Project Blue Book and Hangar 18
Wright-Patterson AFB is known among those involved with
UFO conspiracy theories as the home
of
Project Blue Book and because
of its connection with the
Roswell
UFO incident of July 1947.
Some believe that Hangar 18, assigned to the
Air Force's Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson, along
with the Area
51
installation in Nevada, contains, or once
contained, wreckage of a crashed UFO.
Dayton Agreement
The base is also notable for being the site of the
Dayton Agreement, also known as the Dayton
Accords, the peace agreement that put an end to the three and a
half years of
Bosnian war, one of the
armed conflicts in the former Socialist
Federative Republic of Yugoslavia.
HQ AFMC-GCCS
Wright-Patt is the home of AFMC-
GCCS (Global Command and
Control System), a system designed for crisis action planning and
that supports multiple secure communication protocols.
See also
References
- Population Estimates Geographic Change Notes:
Ohio, United States Census Bureau,
2006-05-19. Accessed 2007-11-15.
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