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Wright-Pat.
Nerve Center of Military Aviation
by William A. Steponkus

WPAFB has earned the reputation as the nation's foremost aeronautical research and development center. Here begin ideas that soon become a new aircraft.

The Air Force of today, tomorrow and yesterday is the prime concern, in one form or another, of more than 27,000 people in and around Dayton, U.S.A.

It happens a few miles from where the Wright Brothers began it all, scarcely more than 60 years ago.

This unique undertaking goes on in the thousands of offices, laboratories and cubicles scattered across the 8,242 acres comprising Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (W-PAFB.)

The base is so diverse that probably no one man can enumerate fully all of its activities. The installation is a "Wonderhouse of Aviation," continuously able to captivate and fascinate commanders, employees and chroniclers, equally.

The huge complex encompasses almost everything having a wing on it and a man in it...and then some. They are born within its confines, are kept alive by t and at least one of each kind ultimately rests here in perpetuity in the Air Force Museum. 

W-PAFB's reputation, earned over the years, is that of the nation's foremost aeronautical research and development center. In these and associated fields, W-PAFB is the heart, the mind and the hand of flying service. 

Without it, the Air Force would be comparable to a hospital without doctors. Wright-Pat's doctors--with degrees in all of the sciences, including medicine--are the men and women who are attuned to the essence of aviation and space progress through change.

Their imprint can be found from Washington to Saigon; from a romantic, old BT-13 at the Air Force Museum to the blueprints of the Apollo space craft that will take the first American to the moon.

Here, begin the ideas--that one day will become the new aircraft. Once birthed and in the sky, they are nurtured by a supply line having its head here and its hands around the world. When their flying days are done, they become a part of history on display at the museum.

The base does not build airplanes or anything else, except an occasional "bread board," or rough mock-up of a piece of hardware. Instead, it spells out what it to be built and it makes sure it comes out that way. Once constructed, the airplane then becomes a creature with a voracious appetite for care and modernization, whose needs are met by Wright-Pat men. Every major aerospace company in the country has an office in Dayton maintaining continuous liaison with the base because of this wide-range responsibility.

The daily accounts of the Vietnam War are a simple, though small, example of the role Wright Field plays in the nation's defense. 

More and more lately, for example, the dispatches tell of American Army units in direct combat with the Viet Cong guerillas. Frequently outnumbered and cut-off from their own lines, our troops manage to hold their own until the airplanes come.

The jet fighters tear into the enemy and break his stranglehold on the ground forces. Today, they are frontline warplanes. Those same fighters were nothing but numbers and performance specifications on a piece of paper at Wright Field a few years ago.

Gradually, they were transformed to shapes on a drawing board and eventually ended in production line airplanes. Engineers and scientists evaluated and re-evaluated everything about them during their gestation period. These tests include all the complex bits and pieces that go into a modern jet fighter including engines, airframes, structural strength, cockpit layout, electrical systems, hydraulic systems, the size of their brakes and tires, accessibility of their innards to mechanics, flight performance and weight.

The end result of continuous refining is the airplane as it appears today.

This complicated series of tasks is a job done by the Aeronautical Systems Division (ASD). It is responsible for the total package which is handed to the operational Air Force. The dollars tell the tale. ASD commits about $3 billion a year.

ASD relies heavily on a sister agency that was part of it until just a few years ago, the Research and Technology Division (RTD). RTD has its headquarters

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Hard to understand is the fact that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is not a simple one mission facility; it is a conglomeration of many functions and units, living side by side and making their contribution to military aviation--the Air Force and the future. 

Currently there are some 67 tenant organizations operating within the confines of the Base, many of them complementing and supplementing each other as it brought out in the accompanying article. But others are here because of Wight-Pat's central location or size.

Located on the Base, but representing the Air Force worldwide is the Air Force Orientation group which prepares and presents displays of Air Force operations at such widely scattered points as the Brussels World's fair, the Paris Air show, the annual meetings of the Air Force association and other public meetings and displays. 

Also on the Base but serving a wide area as a regional facility is the USAF Hospital which provides medical care for all members of the Armed Services and their families.

Assigned to the Base in liaison positions are representatives of the Army, Navy, and Coast Guards as well as units from both the Canadian and British Air Forces.

Also on the base is the regional headquarters for the Civil Air Patrol.

These are a part of W-PAFB in addition to those in the article.