Army Air Fields (WWII) · from 1941

Kirtland Air Force Base

United States Air Force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

History

Kirtland Air Force Base (IATA: ABQ, ICAO: KABQ) is a United States Air Force base. It is located in the southeast quadrant of the Albuquerque, New Mexico, urban area, adjacent to the Albuquerque International Sunport. The base was named for the early Army aviator Colonel Roy C. Kirtland. The military and the international airport share the same runways, making ABQ a joint civil-military airport.

Kirtland AFB is the largest installation in the Air Force Global Strike Command and sixth largest in the United States Air Force. The base occupies 51,558 acres and employs over 23,000 people, including more than 4,200 active duty and 1,000 Guard, plus 3,200 part-time Reserve personnel.

Kirtland is the home of the Air Force Materiel Command's Nuclear Weapons Center (NWC). The NWC's responsibilities include acquisition, modernization and sustainment of nuclear system programs for both the Department of Defense and Department of Energy. The NWC is composed of two wings–the 377th Air Base Wing and 498th Nuclear Systems Wing–along with ten groups and seven squadrons.

Kirtland is home to the 58th Special Operations Wing (58 SOW), an Air Education and Training Command (AETC) unit that provides formal aircraft type/model/series training. The 58 SOW operates the HC-130J, MC-130J, UH-1N Huey, HH-60G Pave Hawk and CV-22 Osprey aircraft. Headquarters, Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center is also located at Kirtland AFB. The 150th Special Operations Wing of the New Mexico Air National Guard, an Air Combat Command (ACC)-gained unit, is also garrisoned at Kirtland. It is also home to the Kirtland Underground Munitions Maintenance and Storage Complex, the largest known repository of nuclear weapons in the world.

Text from Wikipedia: Kirtland Air Force Base, CC BY-SA 4.0, lightly trimmed.

Key dates

1911
Colonel Kirtland learned to fly in 1911 in one of the first Wright airplanes at Dayton, Ohio.
1942
On 7 February 1942, the U.S. Army transferred the training function from TWA back to the USAAF, and the school was redesignated the Combat Crew Training School.
1944
Because Kirtland Field was the closest large airport, its runways and bombloading pit supported the atomic bomb program during 1944 and 1945.
1949
In response to the explosion of a Soviet atomic bomb in the fall of 1949, and following the U.S.’s new military strategy of deterrence, in December 1949 the Special Weapons Command (SWC), a USAF Major Command, was established to develop and test atomic weapons.
1956
In response, in 1956 AFSWC established the 4950th Test Group (Nuclear) to serve as a permanent USAF Air Task Group for atmospheric testing, replacing the 4925th Test Group (Atomic), which then focused on the aircraft/weapon marriage mission.
1968
In 1968 the Air Weather Service's RB-57Fs were redesignated WB-57Fs, and they continued to be used in the atmospheric sampling role, mostly on behalf of the AEC. Some of the aircraft were fitted with probes to scoop up airborne particles in a program of ongoing monitoring of nuclear tests.
1976
Testing ended in 1976, and although the airborne tests demonstrated the need to upgrade the tracker, the optical quality of the mirrors, and the stabilization of the APT, they clearly proved that a laser could be accurately pointed in an airborne environment.
1985
In 1985, the wing graduated approximately 1,250 students from its 34 formal courses.
1994
On 1 April 1994 the 1550th Combat Crew Training Wing was re-designated as the 58th Special Operations Wing under Air Education and Training Command (AETC).

Dates and events quoted from the same Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Records that place someone at this base

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More history

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