Prehistoric
Indian mounds of the
Adena culture at Wright-Patterson are
along P Street and, at the Wright Brothers Memorial,
a hilltop mound group. Aircraft operations on land now part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base began in 1904–1905 when
Wilbur and
Orville Wright used an plot of Huffman Prairie for experimental test flights with the
Wright Flyer III. Their flight exhibition company and the Wright Company School of Aviation returned 1910–1916 to use the flying field.
World War I transfers of land that later became WPAFB include (including the
Huffman Prairie Flying Field) along the Mad River leased to the Army by the
Miami Conservancy District, the adjacent purchased by the Army from the District for the
Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot, and a complex for
McCook Field just north of downtown Dayton between Keowee Street and the Great Miami River. In 1918, Wilbur Wright Field agreed to let McCook Field use hangar and shop space as well as its enlisted mechanics to assemble and maintain airplanes and engines under the direction of
Chief of Air Service Mason Patrick. After
World War I, 347 German aircraft were brought to the United States—some were incorporated into the Army Aeronautical Museum (in 1923 the Engineering Division at McCook Field "first collected technical artifacts for preservation"). The training school at Wilbur Wright Field was discontinued. Wilbur Wright Field and the depot merged after World War I to form the Fairfield Air Depot. The Patterson family formed the Dayton Air Service Committee, Inc which held a campaign that raised $425,000 in two days and purchased northeast of Dayton, including Wilbur Wright Field and the Huffman Prairie Flying Field. In 1924, the committee presented the deeds to
President Calvin Coolidge for the construction of a new aviation engineering center. The entire acreage (including the Fairfield Air Depot) was designated Wright Field, which had units such as the Headquarters, 5th Division Air Service (redesignated 5th Division Aviation in 1928), and its 88th Observation Squadron and 7th Photo Section. New facilities were built 1925–27 on the portion of Wright Field west of Huffman Dam to house all of the McCook Field functions being relocated.
Wright and Patterson fields Wright Field was "formally dedicated" on 12 October 1927 when "the Materiel Division moved from
McCook Field to the new site" At the time of the dedication expenditures of approximately $5 million had been involved in the new facility after 18 months work, with the total amount expected to rise to between $7 and $8 million. The ceremonies included the John L. Mitchell Trophy Race (won by Lt. I. A. Woodring of the 1st Pursuit Group—Speed: 158.968 mph) and Orville Wright raising the flag over the new engineering center. On 1 July 1931, the portion of Wright Field east of Huffman Dam (land known today as Areas A and C of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base which included the Fairfield Air Depot and the Huffman Prairie Flying Field) was redesignated "Patterson Field" in honor of Lieutenant
Frank Stuart Patterson. Lt. Patterson was the son of Frank J. Patterson, co-founder of
National Cash Register. Shortly before the end of WW1, 1Lt Patterson and observer 2Lt LeRoy Swan, both of the
137th Aero Squadron, were killed at Wright Field in the crash of their
de Havilland DH.4 after its wings collapsed during a dive while firing at ground targets with a new synchronized-through–the–propeller machine gun. Patterson's grave and memorial arch is at Woodland Cemetery and Aborateum in Dayton, Ohio.
World War II The area's
World War II Army Air Fields had employment increase from approximately 3,700 in December 1939 to over 50,000 at the war's peak. Wright Field grew from approximately 30 buildings to a facility with some 300 buildings and the Air Corps' first modern paved runways. The original part of the field became saturated with office and laboratory buildings and test facilities. The Hilltop area was acquired from private landowners in 1943–1944 to provide troop housing and services. The portion of Patterson Field from Huffman Dam through the Brick Quarters (including the command headquarters in Building 10262) at the south end of Patterson Field along Route 4 was administratively reassigned from Patterson Field to Wright Field. To avoid confusing the two areas of Wright Field, the south end of the former Patterson Field portion was designated "Area A", the original Wright Field became "Area B", and the north end of Patterson Field, including the flying field, "Area C." In February 1940 at Wright Field, the
Army Air Corps established the Technical Data Branch (Technical Data Section in July 1941, Technical Data Laboratory in 1942). After Air Corps Ferrying Command was established on 29 May 1941, on 21 June an installation point of the command opened at Patterson Field. The Flight Test Training unit of Air Technical Command was established at Wright Field on 9 September 1944 (moved to Patterson Field in 1946,
Edwards AFB on 4 February 1951). Two densely populated housing and service areas across Highway 444, Wood City and Skyway Park, were geographically separated from the central core of Patterson Field and developed almost self-sufficient community status. (Wood City was acquired in 1924 as part of the original donation of land to the government but was used primarily as just a radio range until World War II. Skyway Park was acquired in 1943.) They supported the vast numbers of recruits who enlisted and were trained at the two fields as well as thousands of civilian laborers, especially single women recruited to work at the depot. Skyway Park was demolished after the war. Wood City was eventually transformed into Kittyhawk Center, the base's modern commercial and recreation center. In the fall of 1942, the first twelve "Air Force" officers to receive ATI field collection training were assigned to Wright Field for training in the technical aspects of "crash" intelligence (RAF Squadron Leader Colley identified how to obtain information from equipment marking plates and squadron markings. In July 1944 during the
Robot Blitz, Wright Field fired a reconstructed German
pulse-jet engine (an entire
V-1 flying bomb was by 8 September at
Republic Aviation.) The first German and Japanese aircraft arrived in 1943, and captured equipment soon filled six buildings, a large outdoor storage area, and part of a flight-line hangar for Technical Data Lab study (TDL closed its Army Aeronautical Museum). The World War II
Operation Lusty returned 86 German aircraft to Wright Field for study, e.g., the
Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, while the post-war
Operation Paperclip brought German scientists and technicians to Wright Field, e.g.,
Ernst R. G. Eckert (most of the scientists eventually went to work in the various Wright Field labs.)
UFO studies / sightings Project Sign (
Project Grudge in 1949,
Project Blue Book in March 1952) was WPAFB's T-2 Intelligence investigations of
unidentified flying objects (UFO) reports that began in July 1947.
Neil Armstrong and
Ed White became NASA astronauts.) From 6 March 1950 to 1 December 1951,
Clinton County Air Force Base was assigned as a sub-base of WPAFB, and from 1950 to 1955, Wright-Patt had two
Central Air Defense Force fighter-interceptor squadrons (1 from 1955 to 1960).
Cold War expansions In 1954, of land adjacent to the
Mad River at the northeast boundary of the base, near the former location of the village of
Osborn, were purchased for a
Strategic Air Command dispersal site. Area D structures were demolished in 1957 (donated to the state in 1963 for
Wright State University). In February 1958 the Wright Field (Area B) runways were closed to all jet traffic (1959 Area C operations included 139,276 takeoffs and landings, Area B had 44,699.) The West Ramp complex was built between August 1958 and July 1960. The 4043rd Strategic Wing began
KC-135 Stratotanker operations in February 1960 and
B-52 Stratofortress operations in June 1960. and
Brookfield Air Force Station near the Pennsylvania state line became operational as an
April 1952 – January 1963 sub-base of WPAFB. The 1954–79 "Wright-Patterson Communications Facility #4" was at
Yellow Springs, Ohio (which also had the 1965–77 Celestial Guidance Research Site.) WPAFB also had an
Army Air Defense Command Post for nearby
Project Nike surface-to-air missile sites of the
Cincinnati-Dayton Defense Area were at Wilmington (CD-27, ); Felicity (CD-46, ); Dillsboro (CD-63), and Oxford (CD-78, ). The AADCP activated in the spring of 1960 and moved to Wilmington—with
BIRDIE CCCS—by 1965 (
closed March 1971). Wilkins Air Force Station was a 1961–8
Air Defense Command station of Wright-Patt, and
Gentile Air Force Station (later the Gentile Defense Electronics Supply Center) was assigned to the base on 1 July 1962. In December 1975,
Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft transferred to the 4950th Test Wing at WPAFB.
Following the July 1992 merging of WPAFB labs, the base's
Wright Laboratory included a Flight Dynamics Directorate.
Superfund sites (39 initial areas) of WPAFB were found to be contaminated with chlorinated volatile organic compounds and benzene compounds (soils and groundwater), and an EPA/USAF Federal Facilities Agreement was signed in 1981 for remediation and continued investigation (the Installation Restoration Program for WPAFB identified 65 areas, including 13 landfills, 12 earth fill disposal zones, 9 fuel or chemical spill sites, 6 coal storage piles, 5 fire-training areas, 4 chemical burial sites, and 2 underground storage tanks). In November 1995, the "Dayton Peace Accords" held at WPAFB created the "
Agreement for Peace in
Bosnia and Herzegovina" signed in Paris on 14 December.
Huffman Prairie designation Huffman Prairie was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990 and named part of the 1992
Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. The West Ramp facility switched from the
4950th Test Wing to
AFRC's 445th Airlift Wing with
C-17 Globemaster III transports. The permanent party work force at WPAFB as of 30 September 2024, numbered 7,139 military and 15,642 civilian.
Dayton Agreement In 1995,
Alija Izetbegović, the
President of Bosnia and Herzegovina;
Franjo Tuđman, the
President of Croatia; and
Slobodan Milošević, the
President of Serbia, arrived at Wright-Patterson AFB to commence negotiations to end the
Bosnian War, an ethnic conflict that by 1995 was between the Bosnia and Herzegovina's Bosniaks and the Croats (who had put aside their differences) on one side versus Bosnia and Herzegovina's Serbs on the other side. American diplomat
Richard Holbrooke led the negotiations. Eventually an
agreement was made to have Bosnia and Herzegovina have two internal entities, a Bosniak-Croat federation known as the
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a Serb territory known as
Republika Srpska.
2019–22 coronavirus pandemic In response to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the base sent
airmen from the 88th Medical Group to
Detroit for two months, where they set up a COVID-19 vaccination site in support of the Federal Emergency Management whole-of-government COVID response. The base sent medical Air Force professionals to
New York City after airmen from the 445th Airlift Wing were deployed to aid the city's
response.
Assignments :
Air Materiel Command, 9 March 1946 :
Air Force Logistics Command, 1 April 1961 :
Air Force Materiel Command, 1 July 1992
Units In addition to the command headquarters, major units formerly assigned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base include: • Air Materiel Command Technical Intelligence Department, 10 October 1947 – 21 May 1951 : Redesignated: Air Technical Intelligence Center, 21 May 1951 – 1 July 1961 • USAF Technical Intelligence School, 1 May 1953 – 1 July 1961 • 1702d Air Transport Group, 1 October 1948 – 17 July 1950 •
58th Air Division, 8 September 1955 – 1 February 1959 •
4043d Strategic Wing, 1 April 1959 – 1 February 1963 •
17th Bombardment Wing, 1 July 1963 – 30 September 1975
Museum Located adjacent to the base proper is the
National Museum of the United States Air Force. The oldest and largest military aircraft museum in the world, it houses such aircraft as the only
XB-70 Valkyrie in existence, an
F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter, and the
World War II B-17 bomber,
Memphis Belle. ==Role and operations==