Eastern Air Defense Sector


The Eastern Air Defense Sector is a United States Air Force unit of Air Combat Command, permanently assigned to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. A joint, bi-national military organization, EADS is composed of US and Canadian military forces, federal civilians and contractors. It is located at the Griffiss Business and Technology Park in Rome, New York, the former Griffiss Air Force Base. EADS is a subordinate command of the First Air Force and Continental NORAD Region, located at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.
Its mission is to counter all air threats to EADS' assigned Area of Operations through vigilant detection, rapid warning and precise tactical control of NORAD and NORTHCOM forces.

Mission and operations

The Eastern Air Defense Sector is an Air Combat Command unit permanently assigned to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. A joint bi-national for military organization, EADS is composed of US and Canadian military forces, federal civilians and contractors.
The unit is located at the Griffiss Business and Technology Park in Rome, New York. It is a subordinate to the First Air Force (Air Forces Northern) and Continental NORAD Region, both located at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.
The Air National Guard provides the majority of the forces for the NORAD mission. At EADS, this responsibility belongs to the New York Air National Guard's 224th Air Defense Group. The 224th ADG consists of the 224th Air Defense Squadron, the 224th Support Squadron and two detachments in the Washington, D.C. area.
EADS has more than 400 full- and part-time military and civilian personnel. This includes a Canadian Forces detachment and US Army, US Navy, US Coast Guard and Federal Aviation Administration liaison officers. These personnel work side-by-side with the 224th ADG and are fully integrated into the unit.
The EADS is one of two sectors responsible for the air defense of the continental United States, the other being the Western Air Defense Sector located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.

Assigned units

The Eastern Air Defense Sector has operational command and control over the following Air National Guard fighter units. All units are gained by Air Combat Command when federally activated.
Alabama Air National Guard
District of Columbia Air National Guard
Florida Air National Guard
Louisiana Air National Guard
Massachusetts Air National Guard
Minnesota Air National Guard
New Jersey Air National Guard
Ohio Air National Guard
South Carolina Air National Guard
Vermont Air National Guard
Virginia Air National Guard
Wisconsin Air National Guard

History

Cold War

The sector's history begins on 1 April 1956 when the 4621st Air Defense Wing was organized. The sector's predecessors, the 4709th Defense Wing and the 52d Fighter-Interceptor Wing had performed the air defense mission at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey since 1949.
The wing operated a Manual Air Direction Center at Roslyn AFS, New York. It was redesignated as the New York Air Defense Sector on 1 October. The sector's mission was to train and maintain tactical flying units in state of readiness in order to defend Northeast United States while initially continuing to operate the MDC.
In 1958, in response to the threat of long-range Soviet bombers, the U.S. and Canada signed a treaty creating the bi-national North American Air Defense Command, responsible for both countries’ air defense and air sovereignty. Air Defense Sectors were established soon after, including the New York Air Defense Sector headquartered at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. Responsibility for air defense of the Northeast changed with various reorganizations.
The organization was in large part responsible for one of the foundational projects of the computer era: the development of the SAGE air defense system, from its first test at Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1951, to the installation of the first unit of the New York Air Defense Sector of the SAGE system, in 1958.
The idea for SAGE grew out of Project Whirlwind, a World War II computer development effort, when the War Department realized that the Whirlwind computer might anchor a continent-wide advance warning system. Developed during the 1950s by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratories engineers and scientists for the U.S. Air Force, SAGE monitored North American skies for possible attack by crewed aircraft and missiles for twenty-five years. Aside from its strategic importance, SAGE set the foundation for mass data-processing systems and foreshadowed many computer developments of the 1960s. The heart of the system, the IBM AN/FSQ-7 computer, was the first computer to have an internal memory composed of "magnetic cores," thousands of tiny ferrite rings that served as reversible electromagnets. SAGE also introduced computer-driven graphic displays, online keyboard terminals, time-sharing, high-availability computation with a redundant AN/FSQ-7 to fail over if the primary system went down, digital signal processing, digital transmission over leased telephone lines, digital track-while-scan, digital simulation, computer networking, and duplex computing.
The SAGE Direction Center DC-01 was activated on 1 July 1958, the first sector to achieve this status. In a ceremony marking this achievement, General Curtis E. LeMay was the guest speaker. He described SAGE as, "A system centralizing many air defense functions, minimizing manual tasks and allowing electronic devices to perform hundreds of complex computations accurately and simultaneously to improve air defense capability."
In 1959 the first of two CIM-10 BOMARC surface to air missile sites became operational; at McGuire Air Force Base and at Suffolk County Missile Annex in Long Island.
On 1 April 1966, the NYADS was inactivated, as were the other 22 sectors in the country. The SAGE system remained active until replaced in 1983 by the newer technology Joint Surveillance System. The 3-story DC-01 SAGE building, with reinforced 3' concrete walls and roof now hosts the Headquarters, 21st Expeditionary Mobility Task Force, Air Mobility Command at McGuire AFB.
In 1983, the 24th Air Division was assigned to Griffiss Air Force Base to provide air defense for the Northeast. In 1987, NEADS was activated and co-located with the 24th AD.
On 1 July 1987, four of the previous ADCOM Air Defense sectors were reactivated, redesignated, assigned and colocated with the four remaining air divisions.
The ADTAC Air Divisions were inactivated.
In the mid-1990s, the Air National Guard assumed responsibility for leading U.S. air defense. ANG flying units had performed the air defense mission for decades. But after the changeover, activated Guardsmen provided the command and staff for the Continental U.S. NORAD Region and its subordinate Sector HQs. All reported to First Air Force. The Northeast Sector was the first to transition. In December 1994, the New York Air National Guard activated the Northeast Air Defense Squadron to staff the Sector HQ.

21st century

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Northeast Air Defense Sector pioneered many of the changes that now allow it to build a detailed internal air picture to identify and engage air threats originating from within North America. In addition to the Battle Control Center in Rome, NEADS helped establish and maintain two detachments in the National Capital Region to defend critical assets and improve interagency communication. Instructions for contacting NEADS and other military aviation commands were shared with 9-1-1 dispatch centers after 9/11, in the event of additional hijacking events. https://www.nj.gov/911/home/highlights/2009EMDGuidecards.pdf
On 1 November 2005, the NEADS and SEADS consolidated, giving the Northeast Air Defense Sector the responsibility of providing detection and air defense for the entire eastern half of the United States. NEADS was officially re-designated the Eastern Air Defense Sector on 15 July 2009.
The Northeast Air Defense Squadron formally became the 224th Air Defense Group in December 2014.

Lineage

  • Designated and organized as the 4621st Air Defense Wing, SAGE, 1 April 1956
  • Redesignated as the New York Air Defense Sector on 1 October 1956
  • Discontinued and inactivated on 1 April 1966
  • Redesignated as Northeast Air Defense Sector and activated on 1 July 1987
  • Redesignated as Northeast Air Defense Sector on 1 December 1994
  • Redesignated as Eastern Air Defense Sector on 15 July 2009

Assignments

Stations

Components

Wings and Groups

Interceptor Squadrons

Missile Squadrons

Radar Squadrons

Decorations