Sheppard Air Force Base

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Sheppard Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base adjacent to Wichita Falls, Texas. It is home of the 82nd Training Wing and the 80th Flying Training Wing , home of the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT) Program. The ENJJPT Wing is a uniquely manned multinational organization with a USAF wing commander and a German Air Force operations group commander in the top two leadership positions. Command and operations officers' positions in the flying training squadrons rotate among the participating nations, while the commander of the 80th Operations Support Squadron is always from the USAF. Additionally, officers from all 13 participating nations fill subordinate leadership positions throughout the wing. Eight nations-- Belgium , Denmark , Germany , Italy , The Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and the United States --provide instructor pilots based on their number of student pilots. Canada , Greece , Portugal , Spain and the United Kingdom do not have student pilots in training, but do provide one instructor pilot. As an example of this totally integrated structure, an American student pilot may have a Belgian instructor pilot, a Dutch flight commander, a Turkish section commander, an Italian operations office, and a German squadron commander. Sheppard AFB shares its runway with Wichita Falls Municipal Airport.

[edit] History

Sheppard Air Force Base, officially opened as an Army Air Corps training center in October, 1941. It was established on 300 acres (1.2 km²) just south of Kell Field. The land was sold to the military for one dollar by a Texas cattleman

The base was named Sheppard Field, in honor of the late Senator John Morris Sheppard of Texas who had been the former chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Within six months after VJ day at the end of World War II, orders were issued to deactivate the field. Over the next two years the National Guard used the base. In April 1948 the Air Force asked that Sheppard Field be disposed of, because in December 21,000 servicemembers arrived to reactivate the base, which was renamed Sheppard Air Force Base.

Over the next three decades three training schools were stationed at the base training students in aircraft maintenance, transportation, communication, civil engineering, and field training. The base conducted two Undergraduate Pilot Training programs from 1961-1971, one for West Germany and the other for South Vietnamese helicopter pilots. Between 1960 and 1965 the Strategic Air Command had units stationed at the base that conducted aerospace rescue schools and weather instruction. The Air Force School of Health Care Sciences offered training in Avionics (Fighters and Heavies), dentistry, medicine, nursing, and health-services administration. The population of the base had declined to 3,825 in 1990.

The Department of Defense has proposed a major realignment of the base, with a projected loss of over 2,600 military personnel, as part of the Base Realignment and Closure program announced on May 13, 2005.