Eglin Air Force Base (AFB) (IATA: VPS, ICAO: KVPS, FAA LID: VPS) is a United States Air Force base located approximately 3 miles (5 kilometers) southwest of Valparaiso, Florida in Okaloosa County.
The host unit at Eglin is the 96th Test Wing (formerly the 96th Air Base Wing). The 96 TW is the test and evaluation center for Air Force air-delivered weapons, navigation and guidance systems, Command and Control systems, and Air Force Special Operations Command systems.
Eglin AFB was established in 1935 as the Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Base. It is named in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Frederick I. Eglin (1891-1937), who was killed in a crash of his Northrop A-17 pursuit aircraft on a flight from Langley to Maxwell Field, Alabama.
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Overview
Eglin is an Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) base serving as the focal point for all Air Force armaments. Eglin is responsible for the development, acquisition, testing, deployment and sustainment of all air-delivered non-nuclear weapons.
The base plans, directs and conducts test and evaluation of U.S. and allied air armament, navigation and guidance systems, and command and control systems.
Severe weather testing of aircraft and other equipment is carried out here at the McKinley Climatic Laboratory.
The residential portion of the base is a census-designated place; its population was 8,082 at the 2000 census. Eglin Air Force Base has 2,359 military family housing units. Unmarried junior enlisted members generally live in one of Eglin's seven dormitories located near the dining hall, chapel, base gym, Enlisted Club and bus lines on base. Each individual unit generally handles dormitory assignments. Bachelor Officer Quarters are not available. Several units and one dormitory are currently being renovated in 2011. The base covers 463,128 acres (1,874.2 km² / 723.6 sqm).
Destin Beach Photographer Video
Scheduled airline service
Eglin is also one of the few military air bases in the U.S. to have scheduled passenger airline service as the Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS) is co-located on the base property.
Major units
96th Test Wing (96 TW)
33d Fighter Wing (33 FW)
58th Fighter Squadron
VFA-101
53d Wing (53 WG)
49th Test and Evaluation Squadron
Squadron attached to the 53d Wing but located at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana)
The squadron plans, executes and reports ACC's weapon system evaluation programs for bombers (B-52, B-1 and B-2) and nuclear-capable fighters (F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16). These evaluations include operational effectiveness and suitability, command and control, performance of aircraft hardware and software systems, employment tactics, and accuracy and reliability of associated precision weapons. These weapons include air-launched cruise missiles, standoff missiles, and gravity bombs. Results and conclusions support acquisition decisions and development of war plans. The unit also performs operational testing on new systems and tactics development for the B-52.
Armament Directorate
Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate (AFRL/RW)
7th Special Forces Group (7th SFG)
Tenant units
Tenant units at an Air Force installation are units which have a mission that is significantly different than that of the host unit, and rely heavily upon the host unit for day-to-day operations (sewer, power, security, recreation).
6th Ranger Training Battalion (6th RTB)
Eglin AFB Auxiliary Field No. 6 (Biancur Field) is the site of Camp James E. Rudder and the home of the U.S. Army's 6th Ranger Training Battalion. The 6th RTB conducts the final phase of the U.S. Army Ranger Course. The entire course is 61 days long and is divided into three phases. Each phase is conducted at different geographical and environmental locations. Its mission at Eglin is to expose Ranger students to a fast-paced field training exercise during an 18-day cycle at Eglin.
20th Space Control Squadron (20 SCS)
The mission of the 20 SCS is to detect, track, identify, and report near earth and deep space objects in earth's orbit, and provide space object identification data in support of United States Strategic Command's space control mission. A unit of the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), the men and women of the 20th SCS operate and maintain the AN/FPS-85 radar, the Air Force's only phased-array radar dedicated to tracking earth-orbiting objects.
323 test squadron
Royal Netherlands Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation squadron, operates 2 F-35A
486th Flight Test Squadron (486th FLTS)
This unit, which is apparently not a test squadron at all, operates Boeing C-32Bs in discrete missions for the United States Department of State's Foreign Emergency Support Team.
919th Special Operations Wing (919 SOW)
The 919 SOW, located about five miles (8 kilometers) south of Crestview and 20 miles (32 km) from Eglin main at Eglin AFB Auxiliary Field No. 3 (Duke Field) and is the only special operations wing in the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC). In wartime or a contingency, the 919 SOW reports to Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) at Hurlburt Field, Florida, its gaining major command.
AFOTEC Det 2
The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center stood up Detachment 2 at Eglin to meet the growing demand to provide realistic operational testing for new and modified weapon systems. Since then, Detachment 2 has partnered with the warfighter and the developmental test community to provide the most thorough and rigorous operational test programs found anywhere in the world.
Joint Deployable Analysis Team (JDAT)
Directorate of the Joint Staff, JDAT conducts field analysis of C2 information systems and procedures producing decision-quality data to improve Joint C2 integration and interoperability.
History
Creation and World War II
Much of the base was part of a National Forest until the outbreak of war in Europe when a proving ground for aircraft armament was established at Eglin. The U.S. Forest Service ceded over 340,000 acres of the Choctawhatchee National Forest to the War Department on 18 October 1940.
Eglin Air Force Base evolved from the 1933 creation of the Valparaiso Airport, when an arrowhead-shaped parcel of 137 acres (0.55 km2) was cleared for use as an airdrome.
In 1931, personnel of the Air Corps Tactical School, newly relocated to Maxwell Field, Alabama, sought a location for a bombing and gunnery range. They saw the potential of the sparsely populated forested areas surrounding Valparaiso and the vast expanse of the adjacent Gulf of Mexico.
From October 1941 to October 1945, an AAF Fixed Gunnery School operated at the base, supervised by the 75th Flying Training Wing.
At its peak during World War II, the base employed more than 1,000 officers, 10,000 enlisted personnel and 4,000 civilians.
Postwar
After the war, Eglin became a pioneer in developing the techniques for missile launching and handling; and the development of drone or pilotless aircraft beginning with the Republic-Ford JB-2 Loon, an American copy of the V-1. The 1st Experimental Guided Missiles Group was activated at Eglin Field, Florida, on 6 February 1946, operating out of Auxiliary Field 3. By March 1950, the 550th Guided Missiles Wing, comprising the 1st and 2nd Guided Missile Squadrons, had replaced the 1st Experimental Guided Missiles Group. The 2nd Guided Missile Squadron, SSM, had 62 pilots manning 14 B-17s, three B-29s, and four F-80 Shooting Stars, yellow-tailed drone aircraft used in the role of testing guided missiles.
In December 1955, the Air Munitions Development Laboratory was reassigned from the Wright Air Development Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, to the Air Force Armament Center at Eglin by Headquarters Air Research and Development Command. The responsibility for development of guns, bombs, rockets, fuses, guided missile warheads and other related equipment in the armament field was transferred from the Dayton, Ohio facility at this time. Work on nuclear weapons was not included in this mission.
1960s
The USAF Special Air Warfare Center was activated 27 April 1962, with the 1st Combat Applications Group (CAG) organized as a combat systems development and test agency under the SAWC. The 1st CAG concentrated on testing and evaluation of primarily short-term projects which might improve Air Force counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. The Special Air Warfare Center, located at Hurlburt Field, undertook to develop tactical air doctrine while training crews for special air warfare in places like Southeast Asia. By mid-1963, SAW groups were in Vietnam and Panama.
The USAF Tactical Air Warfare Center was activated on 1 November 1963. It would be re-designated as the USAF Air Warfare Center on 1 October 1991.
With the increasing U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia in the 1960s, the need for increased emphasis on conventional weapons development made Eglin's mission even more important. On 1 August 1968, the Air Proving Ground Center was redesignated the Armament Development and Test Center to centralize responsibility for research, development, test and evaluation, and initial acquisition of non-nuclear munitions for the Air Force. On 1 October 1979, the Center was given division status. The Armament Division, redesignated Munitions Systems Division on 15 March 1989, placed into production the precision-guided munitions for the laser, television, and infrared guided bombs; two anti-armor weapon systems; and an improved hard target weapon, the GBU-28, used in Operation Desert Storm during the Persian Gulf War. The Division was also responsible for developing the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), an Air Force-led joint project with the U.S. Navy.
Late Cold War era
The Air Force Armament Museum was founded on base in 1975. In 1981 the original building housing the museum was condemned and the facility closed until 1984.
Selected on 27 April 1975, the installation served as one of four main U.S. Vietnamese Refugee Processing Centers operated by the Interagency Task Force for Indochina Refugees, where base personnel housed and processed more than 10,000 Southeast Asian refugees, the first 374 of which arrived on board a Northwest Orient Boeing 747 on 4 May 1975.
In 1978, the USAF Tactical Air Warfare Center assumed responsibility for the USAF Air Ground Operations School. In the same year, the Electronic Warfare Evaluation Program became another one of the USAFTAWC's weapons system evaluation programs, and resulted in the activation of the 4487th Electronic Warfare Aggressor Squadron in 1990.
Construction began in 1984 on the Bob Hope Village, the only retirement facility that caters to enlisted military, opening in February 1985. Residents pay below market value for the 256 independent apartments. Col. Bob Gates, Bob Hope's USO pilot, was key in getting the comedian's support for the undertaking, as well as lending his name and prestige to the project. He was named an honorary board member of the foundation in 1978 and held benefit concerts for nearly two decades.
Post Cold War
During a 1992 reorganization, the Air Force disestablished Eglin's parent major command, Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) and merged its functions with the former Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC). The newly created major command from this merger, Air Force Material Command (AFMC), remains Eglin's parent command to this day. The Development Test Center, Eglin's host unit, became part of AFMC on 30 June 1992. The 46th Test Wing replaced the 3246th Test Wing in October 1992.
On 10 August 1994 construction began on the All Conflicts' Veterans War Memorial on the site of the old POW/MIA memorial on the western end of Eglin Boulevard. The memorial was dedicated on 15 August 1995.
As part of the military drawdown in the 1990s, the Air Force inactivated the 33d Fighter Wing's 59th Fighter Squadron on 15 April 1999. The wing lost six aircraft and consolidated the remaining aircraft into the 58th and 60th Fighter Squadrons. Originally selected for inactivation in 1997, Air Force officials delayed the decision in recognition of the Nomads' connection with Khobar Towers. The 59th reactivated as the 59th Test and Evaluation Squadron on 3 December 2004, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. The 59th falls under the 53rd Test Management Group at Eglin.
In July 2012 the Air Armament Center (AAC) was inactivated. The center had planned, directed and conducted test and evaluation of U.S. and allied air armament, navigation and guidance systems, and commanded and controlled systems. It operated two Air Force installations, providing host support not only to Eglin, but also Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. It had included the Armament Product Directorate (Eglin AFB, FL), the 46th Test Wing (Eglin AFB, FL), the 96th Air Base Wing (Eglin AFB, FL), and the 377th Air Base Wing (Kirtland AFB, NM).
Base railroad
Initial construction of a railroad line into the region had been discussed as early as 1927 as part of the Choctawhatchee and Northern Railroad, though military-use proposals didn't come forward until 1941. German POWs were used in clearing and grading the alignment during World War II. There was one commercial customer served by the line, a lumber pulp yard at Niceville which is now community athletic fields. The line was later abandoned in the late 1970s and the southern end, west of State Road 285, lifted by the mid-1980s.
Previous names
- Established as Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Base, 14 June 1935
- Eglin Field, 4 August 1937
- Eglin Field Military Reservation, 1 October 1940
- Eglin Field, 28 December 1944
- Eglin Air Force Base, 24 June 1948-present
Major commands to which assigned
- Air Corps Training Center, 9 June 1935 - 27 August 1940
- Southeast Air Corps Training Center, 27 August 1940 - 1 April 1942
- Chief of the Army Air Corps (Direct subordination), 19 May 1941 - 1 April 1942
- AAF Proving Ground Command**, 1 April 1942 - 1 June 1945
- AAF Center, 1 June 1945
- Air Materiel Command, 20 January 1948 - 1 June 1948
- Air Proving Ground, 1 June 1948
- Air Research and Development Command, 1 December 1957
- Air Force Materiel Command, 1 July 1992-present
** Discontinued 8 March 1946. Not related to later AAF Proving Ground Command
Major units assigned
Eglin auxiliary fields
A number of auxiliary fields were constructed on the Eglin reservation during World War II, many of which are still in service in various roles, either in support of flight operations or special test activities.
- Auxiliary Field 1 (Wagner Field)
- Auxiliary Field 2 (Pierce Field)
- Auxiliary Field 3 (Duke Field)
- Auxiliary Field 4 (Peel Field)
- Auxiliary Field 5 (Piccolo Field)
- Auxiliary Field 6 (Biancur Field)
- Auxiliary Field 7 (Epler Field)
- Auxiliary Field 8 (Baldsiefen Field)
- Auxiliary Field 9 (Hurlburt Field)
- Auxiliary Field 10 (Dillon Field)
- Auxiliary Field 11 is an unconfirmed name for a RED HORSE unsurfaced east-west airstrip that shows up on Google Earth in Walton County.
- The Santa Rosa Island Range Complex is part of the Eglin overwater range that provides 86,500 square miles of overwater airspace that is jointly used for a variety of test and evaluation activities and training exercises.
Demographics
Eglin employs more than 8,500 civilians and approximately 4,500 military, with an additional 2,200 jobs due to move to Eglin under the 2005 BRAC.
As of the census of 2000, there were 8,082 people, 2,302 households, and 2,262 families residing on the base. The population density was 2,640.1 people per square mile (1,019.8/km²). There were 2,320 housing units at an average density of 757.9/sq mi (292.7/km²). The racial makeup of the base was 71.8% White, 14.8% Black or African American, 0.5% Native American, 3.0% Asian, 0.4% Pacific Islander, 4.2% from other races, and 5.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11.2% of the population.
There were 2,302 households out of which 79.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 89.8% were married couples living together, 5.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 1.7% were non-families. 1.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 0.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.50 and the average family size was 3.51.
On the base the population was spread out with 43.5% under the age of 18, 15.2% from 18 to 24, 39.6% from 25 to 44, 1.6% from 45 to 64, and 0.1% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age was 22 years. For every 100 females there were 100.6 males.
The median income for a household on the base was $31,951, and the median income for a family was $31,859. Males had a median income of $25,409 versus $19,176 for females. The per capita income for the base was $10,670. About 4.5% of families and 4.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.5% of those under the age of 18 and none of those 65 and older.
National historic status
There are two U.S. National Historic Landmark Districts with connections to the base: Camp Pinchot and Eglin Field.
On 6 October 1997, the McKinley Climatic Laboratory was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Notable residents
- Author Hunter S Thompson was stationed on Eglin from 1956 until 1958 during his enlistment with the Air Force.
- Infielder Jay Bell was born in the base hospital in 1965.
- NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Aric Almirola was born in Eglin in 1984
Eglin AFB in pop culture
- Three movies have been filmed in part at Eglin Air Force Base or its outlying auxiliary airfields, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo in 1944, Twelve O' Clock High in 1949, and On the Threshold of Space in 1955.
- Several Tom Clancy novels refer to "raking the sand traps on the officers' golf course" at Eglin as a common activity for low-security prisoners at the associated Federal Prison Camp, Eglin, now closed.
- F-15 Eagles from Eglin's 33rd Fighter Wing, 59th Fighter Squadron, were used in the filming of the 1997 movie Air Force One.
- Eglin AFB appears as the default airport in the simulation software Prepar3D.
Climate
Warm, subtropical weather lasts longer than the average summer. The annual precipitation ranges from 25 inches (640 mm) to 60 inches (1,500 mm). Year-round, the average temperatures run:
January - March: 60-69 High and 42-51 Low
April - June: 76-88 High and 58-72 Low
July - September: 86-98 High and 70-77 Low
October - December: 63-79 High and 44-69 Low
The area gets only 50 to 60 days of annual precipitation or more rainfall. There are few days without sunshine, which allows year-round outdoor activities.
Environment
The forests and shores of Eglin Air Force Base are at the center of one of the most biodiverse locations in North America. Over 50 species threatened in Florida are found on the base, including sea turtles that nest on its white-sand beaches and red-cockaded woodpeckers that thrive in its longleaf pine forests. The base has a natural resources management team that constantly monitors important species within the base with the goal of balancing their national defense mission with environmental stewardship. Longleaf pine forest, a forest type reduced to 5% of its former range in the last few centuries, covers 200,000 acres (810 km2) of the base. Part of this forest, 6,795 acres (27.50 km2), is old growth, making the base home to one of the most extensive old-growth longleaf pine forests in the world.
In order to deal with the high noise levels of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, officials from Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties are studying which homes, businesses and public buildings will require additional noise protection.
Civil rocketry
Eglin Air Force Base was also a launch site for civil rockets of NASA. There are three launch pads: one at 29.6700 N, 85.3700 W at Cape San Blas; and two on Santa Rosa Island at 30.3800 N, 86.7400 W and 30.3800 N, 86.8170 W. Rockets launched here have included Arcas, Nike Cajun, Nike Apaches, and Nike Iroquois. This site was formerly operated by the 4751st ADMS with CIM-10 Bomarcs, which inactivated in 1979. In the 1940s, captured V-1 flying bombs and American copies, Republic-Ford JB-2 LOONs, were launched out over the Gulf of Mexico from these sites. Two concrete launch ramps were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. A rusting Loon launch ramp still exists at Auxiliary Field 1, Wagner Field.
Eglin is known to have been used for 441 launches from 1959 to 1980, reaching up to 686 kilometers altitude.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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