Columbus Air Force Base
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Columbus Air Force Base
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| IATA: CBM – ICAO: KCBM – FAA: CBM | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Military: Air Force Base | ||
| Owner | United States Air Force | ||
| Location | Columbus, Mississippi | ||
| Built | 1941 | ||
| In use | 1942 - 1945 1951 - present |
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| Commander | Colonel David K. Gerber | ||
| Occupants | 14th Flying Training Wing | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 219 ft / 67 m | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Website | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| ft | m | ||
| 13C/31C | 12,000 | 3,658 | Concrete |
| 13L/31R | 8,000 | 2,438 | Asphalt/Concrete |
| 13R/31L | 6,300 | 1,920 | Concrete |
| Sources: official web site[1] and FAA[2] | |||
Columbus Air Force Base (IATA: CBM, ICAO: KCBM, FAA LID: CBM) is a United States Air Force base in Lowndes County, Mississippi, United States. The residential part of the base is a census-designated place (CDP), with a population of 2,060 at the 2000 census.
The host wing is the 14th Flying Training Wing (14 FTW) of the Air Education and Training Command (AETC), which includes staff agencies, an operations group, and a mission support group.
Columbus' mission is to conduct undergraduate pilot training, as well as perform quality assurance for contract aircraft maintenance.
Contents |
[edit] History
The installation's history began 26 June 1941, when the War Department approved establishment of an Army Air Field for the Columbus area. Behind this approval were months of concerted efforts by the local citizens. On the afternoon of 14 February 1941, 100 of the area's leading citizens banded together to organize an association to secure defense industries.
The citizens' efforts bore fruit. Six months before Pearl Harbor the War Department announced that a pilot training base would be established in Columbus. On 12 August 1941, Columbus officials leased the tract of land to the United States for $1 per year.
The base began as a training facility for fighters and bombers. Planned as a twin-engine advanced flying school, the new air base came under the control of the Southeastern Air Corps Training Center at Maxwell Field, Alabama. The Mion Company began construction on 12 September 1941. On 13 January 1942, 100 enlisted men arrived to form the first skeleton organizations on the base.
No one designated or suggested a name for the new base until 22 January 1942. On that date, the War Department announced the installation would be named Kaye Field, in honor of Capt Sam Kaye, a World War I flying ace from Columbus. That designation went into effect on 24 February. However, the name issue soon became one of confusion because another nearby base, Key Field in Meridian, Mississippi which had a similar sounding name. To correct the problem, in March 1942, the War Department changed the name of the base from Kaye Field to Columbus Army Flying School.
The Columbus flying school received its first aircraft, nine Lockheed AT-10s and twenty-one AT-8s in early 1942. Barksdale Field, Louisiana, provided the first students. Twenty-five cadets arrived at Columbus in February 1942. They had already completed a considerable part of their training when the Air Corps moved them. The cadets entered training at Columbus on 9 February and graduated on 6 March.
During World War II, the training load gradually increased until Columbus was graduating 195 pilots per month. A total of 7,766 students came to Columbus for pilot training during the war. Of these, 7,412 graduated and received their wings and commissions.
The school used a number of trainers, including the AT-8, AT-9, AT-10, and B-25. For administrative travel, Columbus used the AT-6 and BC-1A.
Due to the efforts of Lt Col Joseph B. Duckworth, the Columbus Army Flying School developed and perfected two systems of training, which was adopted by the command. The first was the Flying Evaluation Board. This board instituted tough new criteria to evaluate an instructor's proficiency. The second was the "full panel" attitude system of instrument flying, which is credited with revolutionizing training in blind flying. In addition to the three instruments already used, students were taught to use two gyro instruments, the magnetic compass, the rate-of-climb indicator, and the clock.
When the war ended in 1945, the base strength had reached a peak of 2,300 enlisted men, 300 officers, and an average of 250 pilot cadets per class. The end of hostilities significantly slowed training activities, so in 1946 the War Department directed the inactivation of the base.
Columbus was void of activity for four years until communist troops violated South Korea's borders and fighting broke out in 1950. To handle increased pilot requirements for the Korean War, Air Training Command activated the now-renamed Columbus AFB on 20 December to be used as a station for a contract flying school. To manage the base, ATC established the 3301st Training Squadron (Contract Flying) on 1 March 1951. The contractor who provided pilot training was California Eastern Airways. That training continued until 1954, when ATC directed that the mission be moved by early 1955 to Moore Air Base, Texas.
On 1 April 1955, HQ USAF transferred Columbus AFB from ATC control to Strategic Air Command (SAC) and Second Air Force (2 AF). The base began an active building program to support its new mission, to be part of SAC's base dispersal system. City fathers deeded an additional 3,600 acres (15 km²) to the base so that a northwest-southeast runway could be built, along with a 480-unit family housing project. It was not until December 1957, however, that officials at HQ SAC announced the base would become the home of a B-52 bombardment squadron and a KC-135 air refueling tanker squadron. To manage these units, on 1 July 1958, Strategic Air Command activated the 4228th Strategic Wing at Columbus.
The first KC-135 Stratotanker, piloted by the wing commander, landed on the new runway on 7 January 1959. This was followed by the arrival of the first B-52 on 28 May. In February 1963, SAC inactivated the 4228th Strategic Wing and activated the 454th Bombardment Wing, Heavy, in its place. The 454th conducted air refueling operations, trained in bombardment operations and maintained a SAC nuclear alert posture. Beginning in the summer of 1965, the wing's headquarters staff, tactical aircraft and crews, and maintenance personnel became a part of SAC combat forces in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. During their involvement in the Vietnam War, the 454th Combat Support Group operated Columbus AFB.
After 14 years as a SAC base, on 1 July 1969, HQ USAF transferred Columbus back to Air Training Command and to its original mission of training undergraduate student pilots. In preparation for this transfer, Air Training Command had activated the 3650th Pilot Training Wing at Columbus on 15 February. The first undergraduate pilot training (UPT) class--71-01--entered school on 17 July.
Three years later, on June 1, 1972, Air Training Command (ATC) discontinued the 3650th and activated the 14th Flying Training Wing in its place. The 14 FTW continues today as the host organization at Columbus. In 1992, ATC was inactivated and the 14 FTW came under the newly created Air Education and Training Command (AETC) and AETC's 19th Air Force (19 AF).
[edit] Geography
Columbus AFB is located at 33°37'48" North, 88°26'47" West (33.630060, -88.446271)[3]. It is located near the confluence of the Buttahatchee and Tombigbee Rivers.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the base has a total area of 18.2 km² (7.0 mi²), all land.
[edit] Demographics
As of the census[4] of 2000, there are 2,060 people, 570 households, and 532 families residing on the base. The population density is 113.0/km² (292.8/mi²). There are 642 housing units at an average density of 35.2/km² (91.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the base is 75.63% White, 16.36% Black or African American, 0.73% Native American, 2.52% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 1.70% from other races, and 3.01% from two or more races. 4.85% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 570 households out of which 64.0% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 85.8% are married couples living together, 5.1% have a female householder with no husband present, and 6.5% are non-families. 5.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 0.7% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 3.18 and the average family size is 3.27.
The age distribution of the base is: 33.4% under the age of 18, 21.8% from 18 to 24, 41.4% from 25 to 44, 2.7% from 45 to 64, and 0.7% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 24 years. For every 100 females there are 126.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 126.2 males. All these statistics are broadly typical for military bases.
The median income for a household on the base is $39,596, and the median income for a family is $40,602. Males have a median income of $26,111 versus $20,481 for females. The per capita income for the base is $15,626. 7.6% of the population and 7.2% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 6.5% of those under the age of 18 and 0.0% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
[edit] Education
Children of Columbus Air Force Base military personnel are served by the Columbus Municipal School District. Columbus has just started a school choice program that allows children to attend Caledonia Schools in Lowndes County, MS.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Columbus Air Force Base, official web site
- ^ FAA Airport Master Record for CBM (Form 5010 PDF), effective 2007-12-20
- ^ US Gazetteer files: 2000 and 1990. United States Census Bureau (2005-05-03). Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
- ^ American FactFinder. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
This article incorporates text from [http://www.columbus.af.mil Columbus Air Force Base, a public domain work of the United States Government.
[edit] External links
- Columbus Air Force Base, official site
- Columbus Air Force Base at GlobalSecurity.org
- Columbus Air Force Base Main Entrance Photo
- Columbus AFB Services Division
- Columbus Air Force Base is at coordinates Coordinates:
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