79th Flying Training Wing (U.S. Army Air Forces)


The 79th Flying Training Wing was a unit of the United States Army Air Forces. It was last assigned to the Eastern Flying Training Command, and was disbanded on 16 June 1946 at Midland Army Airfield, Texas.
It has no lineage link with any current USAF unit.

History

As a gunnery training wing, both enlisted flexible gunnery schools for bomber-crew defensive gunners, and pilot-training, fixed-gunnery schools were included. After graduation, air cadets were commissioned as second lieutenants, received their "wings", and were reassigned to operational or replacement training units operated by one of the four numbered air forces in the zone of interior.

Lineage

  • Established as 79th Flying Training Wing on 14 August 1943

Assignments

Training aircraft

The schools of the wing used Beechcraft AT-11 and Lockheed AT-18s for airborne gunnery trainers. Trainee gunners fired at modified AT-6s and Bell RP-39Qs with nonpiercing ammunition that would break apart on contact. Also, older, noncombat-suitable B-24 Liberators and B-17 Flying Fortresses were used in the latter part of training.
Fixed gunnery training at Matagorda Island used North American AT-6s to attack fixed targets on the range with machine guns and concrete practice bombs.

Assigned schools

; Harlingen Army Airfield, Harlingen, Texas
; Laredo Army Airfield, Laredo, Texas
; Matagorda Island General Bombing and Gunnery Range, Matagorda Island, Texas

Stations