| Joint Base Langley–Eustis | |
|---|---|
| Part of Air Combat Command (ACC) U. S. Army Installation Management Command |
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| adjacent to Newport News, Virginia | |
1st FW F-22 Raptor flies over Fort Monroe Virginia Best of the US Army - Fort Eustis Virginia |
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| Coordinates | (Air Base) (Army Fort) |
| Built | 1916 |
| In use | 1916-Present |
| Controlled by | United States Air Force |
| Garrison | 633d Air Base Wing (USAF) |
| Airfield information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| IATA: LFI – ICAO: KLFI – FAA LID: LFI | |||
| Summary | |||
| Elevation AMSL | 11 ft / 3 m | ||
| Website | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| ft | m | ||
| 8/26 | 10,000 | 3,480 | Concrete |
| Sources: official website[1] and FAA[2] | |||
Joint Base Langley–Eustis (IATA: LFI, ICAO: KLFI, FAA LID: LFI) is a United States military facility located in Hampton and Newport News, Virginia. The facility is under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force 633rd Air Base Wing, Air Combat Command (ACC)[3]
The facility is an amalgamation of the United States Air Force's Langley Air Force Base and the United States Army's Fort Eustis which were merged on 1 October 2010.
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Joint Base Langley–Eustis was established in accordance with congressional legislation implementing the recommendations of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The legislation ordered the consolidation of the two facilities which were adjoining, but separate military installations, into a single joint base – one of 12 joint bases formed in the United States as a result of the law.
Unlike other joint bases that share common perimeters, the two components are geographically separated by 17 miles. In January 2010, the Air Force reactivated the 633d Air Base Wing to assume host unit and installation support functions at each location. The installation assumed its full operational capability (FOC) in October 2010.[4] The 633rd ABW commander is Col. Korvin Auch, with Chief Master Sgt. Kevin J. Howell as its command chief master sergeant.
The Air Force mission at Langley is to sustain the ability for fast global deployment and air superiority for the United States or allied armed forces.
The base is one of the oldest facilities of the Air Force, having been established on 30 December 1916, prior to America's entry to World War I by the Army Air Service, named for aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley. It was used during World War I as a flying field; balloon station; observers’ school; photography school; experimental engineering department, and for aerial coast defense. It is situated on 3,152 acres of land between the cities of Hampton (south), NASA LaRC (west), and the northwest and southwest branches of the Back River.[5]
Airpower over Hampton Roads is a recurring airshow held at Langley in the spring. Many demonstrations take place, including the F-22 Raptor Demonstration, Aerobatics, and parachute demos.
To accomplish their mission, the support unit men and women of the 633d Air Base Wing at Langley are housed in the Mission Support Groups and Medical Group and support several tenant units:[3]
Operational squadrons of the 1st Operations Group are: (Tail Code: FF)
The Wing is composed of the following units worldwide:
Langley also hosts the Global Cyberspace Integration Center field operating agency and Headquarters Air Combat Command (ACC).
Langley is also home to the F-22 Raptor Demo Team. This team, who travels all over the world performing different maneuvers used in air combat, is used to help recruit for the United States Air Force. Performing in airshows and other special events all around the world, the squadron is the only demonstration team in the world to use the F-22 Raptor.
Langley Air Force Base, Va., is among the oldest continuously active air bases in the United States. In 1916, the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics, predecessor to NASA, established the need for a joint airfield and proving ground for Army, Navy and NACA aircraft. NACA determined that the site must be near water for over-water flying, be flat and relatively clear for expansion and the landing and take-off of aircraft and near an Army post. The Army appointed a board of officers who searched for a location. The officers sometimes posed as hunters and fishermen to avoid potential land speculation which would arise if the government's interest in purchasing land were revealed. Fifteen locations were scouted before the site near Hampton was selected.[6]
In 1917, the new proving ground was designated Langley Field for one of America's early air pioneers, Samuel Pierpont Langley. Langley had first made tests with his manned heavier-than-air craft, launched from a houseboat catapult, in 1903. His first attempts failed and he died in 1906, shortly before a rebuilt version of his craft soared into the sky.[6]
Several buildings had been constructed on the field by late 1918. Aircraft on the ramp at that time included the JN-4 Curtis Jenny, used by Langley's School of Aerial Photography, and the deHavilland DH-4 bomber, both used during World War I. Although short-lived, hydrogen-filled dirigibles played an important role in Langley's early history and a portion of the base is still referred to as the LTA (lighter-than-air) area.[6]
In the early 1920s, Langley became the site where the new air power concept was tried and proven. Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell led bombing runs from Langley over captured German warships anchored off the coast of Virginia. These first successful tests set the precedent for the airplane's new role of strategic bombardment.[6]
Throughout the 1930s Langley Field occupied a princlpal position in the Army's efforts to strengthen the offensive and defensive posture of its air arm. The small grassy field became a major airfield of the United States Army Air Corps, and many of the brick buildings of today were constructed at that time.[6]
At the outbreak of World War ll Langley took on a new mission, to develop special detector equipment used in antisubmarine warfare. Langley units played a vital role in the sinking of enemy submarines off the United States coast during the war.[6]
On 25 May 25, 1946 the headquarters of the newly formed Tactical Air Command were established at Langley. The command's mission was to organize, train, equip and maintain combat-ready forces capable of rapid deployment to meet the challenges of peacetime air sovereignty and wartime air defense. The arrival of Tactical Air Command and jet aircraft marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the field, and in January 1948 Langley Field officially became Langley Air Force Base.[6]
In January 1976 the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing was transferred to Langley from MacDill Air Force Base, Florida with the mission of maintaining combat capability for rapid global deployment to conduct air superiority operations. To accomplish this mission, the 1st TFW was the first USAF operational wing to be equipped with F-15 Eagle.[6]
On 1 June 1992, Langley became the headquarters of the newly formed Air Combat Command, as Tactical Air Command was inactivated as part of the Air Force's restructuring. Air Combat Command acts as the primary provider of air combat forces in the warfighting commands and as the proponent for Intercontinental ballistic missiles and fighter, bomber, reconnaissance and battle-management aircraft, and command, control, communications and intelligence systems.[6]
On 15 December 2005, the 1st Fighter Wing's 27th Fighter Squadron became the Air Force's first operational F-22 fighter squadron. The wing's compliment of 40 F-22s, in the 27th and 94th FS reached Full Operational Capability on 12 December 2007.
Langley Air Force Base was severely damaged by flooding due to the storm surge from Hurricane Isabel in September 2003 and again during the November 2009 Mid-Atlantic nor'easter. Hurricane Isabel damages to Langley Air Force Base were approximately $147 million. The damages associated with the 2009 nor'easter were approximately $43 million.[6]
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Pre World War II Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps
Air Service (1920–1926); United States Army Air Corps (1926–1941)
General Headquarters (GHQ), Air Force
World War II
Army Air Forces Training Command
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United States Air Force
Tactical Air Command
Tactical Air Command, and later Air Combat Command
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Fort Eustis, a historic Army installation and the second half of Joint Base Langley-Eustis, is an excellent area to train service members in transportation, aviation maintenance, logistics and deployment doctrine with its diverse landscape and easy access to the James River.
The installation is the training ground for the majority of the transportation MOSs (with the exception of the 88M truck driver specialty located at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.) and all of the helicopter maintenance technicians. It is the home of the Transportation Regiment, and is planned to receive the transfer of some activities currently conducted at Fort Monroe, which is scheduled for closure under BRAC.[10]
The following units are stationed at Fort Eustis:
Much of the land which constitutes Fort Eustis was known in colonial times as Mulberry Island, and was first settled by the English colonists shortly after Jamestown was established in 1607. An important event in Virginia's history occurred in the James River adjacent to Mulberry Island in the summer of 1610. Survivors of the ill-fated Third Supply mission from England and the Starving Time in the Colony had boarded ships intent upon abandoning the floundering Colony of Virginia and were met by a fleet of ships from England headed by Lord Delaware bringing new supplies and a fresh determination to stay. He literally turned the situation around.
Among those who almost left was John Rolfe, who had departed England with his wife and child in 1609, with some very promising seeds for a different strain of tobacco he hoped would prove more favorable to export from Virginia than had been the experience to date. He had lost his wife and child by this time, but still had the untried seeds. The turning point at Mulberry Island delivered both Lord Delaware and businessman-farmer John Rolfe, two very different men, back to Jamestown, where they and the others were to find new success.
Lord Delaware's skills and resources combined with Rolfe's new strain of tobacco to provide the colony with effective leadership structure as the new cash crop began financial stabilization by 1612. By 1614, Rolfe owned an interest in a tobacco plantation. That same year, he became the husband of Pocahontas. For the next 300 years, Mulberry Island remained lightly populated with farms, perhaps the most rural portion of Warwick County, which since a political consolidation in 1958 has been a part of the independent city of Newport News.
During the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War in 1862, Mulberry Island anchored the southern end of the Warwick Line, a line of Confederate defensive works across the Virginia Peninsula extending to Yorktown on the north at the York River.
On March 7, 1918, the Army bought Mulberry Island and the surrounding land for $538,000 as part of the military build-up for World War I. Approximately 200 residents were relocated, many to the Jefferson Park area nearby in Warwick County. Camp Abraham Eustis was established as a coast artillery replacement center for Fort Monroe and a balloon observation school. It was named for Brevit Brigadier General Abraham Eustis, a 19th century leader who had been the first commanding officer of Fort Monroe, a defensive fortification at the mouth of Hampton Roads about 15 miles (24 km) east at Old Point Comfort in what is now the city of Hampton.[11]
A few miles upstream along the James River, a satellite facility, Camp Wallace, was established in 1918 as the Upper Firing Range of for artillery training. Consisting of 30 barracks, six storehouses, and eight mess halls,[12] it was located on 160 acres (0.6 km2) on the edge of Grove, just west of the Carter's Grove Plantation property, south of U.S. Route 60, and east of the old Kingsmill Plantation in nearby James City County.
Camp Wallace included some rugged terrain and bluffs overlooking the river. It was the site of anti-aircraft training during World War II. Many years later, the Army's aerial tramway was first erected at Camp Wallace and later moved to Fort Eustis near the Reserve Fleet for further testing. The purpose of the tramway was to provide cargo movement from ship-to-shore, shore-to-ship, and overland. The tramway supplemented beach and pier operations, used unloading points deemed unusable due to inadequate or non-navigable waters, or to traverse land that was otherwise impassable.[13]
In 1971, the U.S. Army agreed to a land swap with Anheuser-Busch in return for a larger parcel which is located directly across Skiffe's Creek from Fort Eustis. Along with land previously owned by Colonial Williamsburg, the former Camp Wallace land became part of a massive development.[14] Nearby, the Busch Gardens Europe theme park opened in 1975, as well as a large brewery, and the Kingsmill Resort.
Camp Abraham Eustis became Fort Eustis and a permanent military installation in 1923. It was garrisoned by artillery and infantry units until 1931, when it became a federal prison, primarily for bootleggers during Prohibition. The repeal of Prohibition resulted in a prisoner decline and the post was taken over by various other military and non-military activities.
Fort Eustis was reopened as a military installation in August 1940 as the Coast Artillery Replacement Training Center. In 1943, the Caribbean Regiment of the British Army was formed there. In 1946, Fort Eustis became home to the newly-formed Transportation School which moved there from New Orleans. Training in rail, marine, amphibious operations and other modes of transportation was consolidated at Fort Eustis.
After undergoing 2005 Base Realignment and Closure directives from the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Army Transportation School and Center moved to Fort Lee, Va., in 2010. Fort Eustis remains an excellent installation for training and has gained major commands, such as the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.
| Base Realignment and Closure 2005 Department of Defense Joint Basing Program |
| Joint Base Lewis-McChord |
| Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst |
| Joint Base Andrews |
| Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling |
| Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall |
| Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson |
| Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam |
| Joint Base San Antonio |
| Joint Base Charleston |
| Joint Base Langley-Eustis |
| Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story |
| Joint Region Marianas |
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.
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