Hill Air Force Base

Hill Air Force Base
Part of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC)
Located near: Ogden, Utah

388th FW F-16 Fighting Falcons
Coordinates 41°07′26″N 111°58′22″W / 41.12389°N 111.97278°W / 41.12389; -111.97278 (Hill AFB)
Site information
Controlled by  United States Air Force
Open to
the public		 No
Site history
Built 1939
In use 1939–Present
Garrison information
Garrison  75th Air Base Wing
 388th Fighter Wing
 419th Fighter Wing
Airfield information
Summary
Elevation AMSL 4,789 ft / 1,459.7 m
Coordinates 41°07′26″N 111°58′22″W / 41.12389°N 111.97278°W / 41.12389; -111.97278Coordinates: 41°07′26″N 111°58′22″W / 41.12389°N 111.97278°W / 41.12389; -111.97278
Website www.hill.af.mil
Map
KHIF

Location of Hill Air Force Base

Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
14/32 13,508 4,117 PEM

Hill Air Force Base (IATA: HIF, ICAO: KHIF, FAA LID: HIF) is a major U.S. Air Force base located in northern Utah, just south of the city of Ogden, and near the towns of Clearfield, Riverdale, Roy, Sunset, and Layton. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of Salt Lake City. The base was named in honor of Major Ployer Peter Hill of the U.S. Army Air Corps, who died test-flying a prototype of the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. In this decade Hill AFB is still the sixth-largest employer in the state of Utah, and the third-largest one excluding the State Government and Higher Education employers.[1] Hill AFB is the home of the Air Force Materiel Command's (AFMC) Ogden Air Logistics Complex which is the worldwide manager for a wide range of aircraft, engines, missiles, software, avionics, and accessories components. The commander of the Air Logistics Complex is Brigadier General H. Brent Baker Sr. The Ogden Air Logistics Complex is part of the Air Force Sustainment Center.

The host unit at Hill AFB is the Air Force Material Command's 75th Air Base Wing (75 ABW), which provides services and support for the Ogden Air Logistics Complex and its subordinate organizations. The Wing and Installation Commander of Hill Air Force Base is Colonel Ronald Jolly. Additional tenant units at Hill AFB include operational fighter wings of the Air Combat Command (ACC) and the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC).

Units

Main units

Tenant units

Utah Test and Training Range

The Utah Test and Training Range is one of the only live-fire U.S. Air Force training ranges within the United States. It is located in far western Utah, close to the Nevada border, and it extends both north and south of Interstate Highway 80, with several miles of separation on each side of the Interstate Highway. The portion of the bombing range that lies north of Interstate 80 is also west of the Great Salt Lake. The Utah Test and Training Range lies in Tooele County, and the land is owned by the state of Utah, but the use of the airspace and training exercises are scheduled by Hill AFB.

On September 8, 2004, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Genesis space probe crash-landed on the nearby U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, as planned.

History

Hill Air Force Base is named in honor of Major Ployer Peter Hill (1894–1935), the Chief of the Flying Branch of the U.S. Army Air Corps Material Division of Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. Major Hill had died as a result of injuries he received from the crash of the Boeing Aircraft Company's experimental aircraft Boeing Model 299 at Wright Field, the prototype airplane for what became the famous B-17 Flying Fortress.

Hill Air Force Base traces its origins back to the ill-fated U.S. Army's Air Mail "experiment" of 1934, when the idea originated for a permanent air depot in the Salt Lake City area. In the following years, the U.S. Army Air Corps surveyed the region for a suitable location for the permanent western terminus of the air mail. Several sites in Utah were considered, and the present site near Ogden emerged as the clear favorite.

In July 1939, Congress appropriated $8.0 million for the establishment and construction of the Ogden Air Depot. Hill Field officially opened on 7 November 1940.

Following American entry into World War II in December 1941, Hill Field quickly became an important maintenance and supply base, with round-the-clock operations geared to supporting the war effort. Battle-worn warplanes like the A-26, B-17, B-24, B-29, P-40, P-47, P-61, were sent to Hill Field for structural repairs, engine overhauls, and spare parts. The peak wartime employment at Hill Field was reached in 1943 with a total of just over 22,000 military and civilian personnel. Men and women at the depot rehabilitated and returned thousands of warplanes to combat.

A retired USAF H-21C Shawnee double-rotor helicopter at the Hill Aerospace Museum.

Starting in 1944, Hill Field was utilized for the long-term storage of surplus airplanes and their support equipment, including outmoded P-40 Tomahawks and P-40 Warhawks which had been removed from combat service and replaced by newer and better warplanes. P-47 Thunderbolts, B-24 Liberators, B-29 Superfortresses, and many other types of aircraft were also prepared for and placed in storage at Hill over the course of the 1940s and 1950s.

Hill Field became the Hill Air Force Base on 5 February 1948, following the creation of the United States Air Force. During the Korean War, Hill AFB was assigned a major share of the Air Materiel Command's logistical effort to support the combat in Korea. Hill AFB personnel quickly removed needed warplanes from storage, renovated them, and added them to active-service USAF flying squadrons.

Then during the 1960s, Hill AFB began to perform the maintenance support for various kinds of jet warplanes, mainly the F-4 Phantom II during the Vietnam War, and then afterwards, the more modern F-16 Fighting Falcons, A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, and C-130 Hercules, and also air combat missile systems and air-to-ground rockets. Hill AFB continues to carry out these tasks to the present day.

Hill AFB has also housed the 30-acre (120,000 m2) Hill Aerospace Museum since 1981. This contains more than 80 retired USAF, USAAF, USN and former Warsaw Pact fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and missiles.

Major commands assigned

Hangar at Hill Air Force Base.

Base operating units

Connections to the Hi-Fi murders

Three enlisted United States Air Force airmen stationed at Hill AFB – Pierre Dale Selby, William Andrews and Keith Roberts – were convicted in connection with the Hi-Fi murders, which took place at the Hi-Fi Shop in Ogden, Utah, on April 22, 1974. Selby and Andrews were both sentenced to death for murder and aggravated robbery while Roberts, who had remained in a getaway vehicle, was convicted of robbery.[2] Evidence gathered from a trashbin on base and from the perpetrators' barracks was instrumental in their convictions.[3]

One of the survivors of the attack, Cortney Naisbitt, later trained in computers and worked at Hill Air Force Base.[4]

See also

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.

  1. ↑ "Utah's Largest Employers" (PDF). Utah Department of Workforce Services, Workforce Information. Retrieved 2009-04-08.
  2. ↑ Ortiz, Marcos (29 June 2012). "Ogden Hi-Fi murders revisited". abc4.com. ABC 4.
  3. ↑ John Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess, Robert K. Ressler (2011). Crime Classification Manual: A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes. John Wiley & Sons. p. 145.
  4. ↑ Warchol, Glen (2002-07-15). "Hi-Fi Torture Victim Dies 28 Years Later". The Salt Lake Tribune.

Note: Much of this text in an early version of this article was taken from pages on the Hill Air Force Base Website, which as a work of the U.S. Government is presumed to be a public domain resource. That information was supplemented by:


  1. ↑ http://www.afsc.af.mil/
  2. ↑ http://www.afimsc.af.mil/Home.aspx
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