United States Air Force Warfare Center


The United States Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis [Air Force Base], Nevada, reports directly to Air Combat Command. The center was founded on 1 September 1966, as the U.S. Air Force Tactical Fighter Weapons Center. It was renamed the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center in 2005.

Overview

The USAF Warfare Center manages advanced pilot training and integrates many of the Air Force's test and evaluation requirements. It was established in 1966 as the USAF Tactical Fighter Weapons Center which concentrated on the development of forces and weapons systems that were specifically geared to tactical air operations in conventional war and contingencies. It continued to perform this mission for nearly thirty years, undergoing several name changes in the 1990s. In 1991, the center became the USAF Fighter Weapons Center, and then the USAF Weapons and Tactics Center in 1992.
The USAF Warfare Center uses the lands and airspace of the Nevada Test and Training Range – which occupies about three million acres of land, the largest such range in the United States, and another five-million-acre military operating area which is shared with civilian aircraft. The center also uses Eglin AFB, FL, range, which adds even greater depth to the center's capabilities, providing over water and additional electronic expertise to the center.
The USAF Warfare Center oversees operations of the 57th Wing, the NTTR, and the 99th Air Base Wings at Nellis AFB, Nevada; the 53d Wing and 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida; and the 505th Command and Control Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida.

Units

History

By the mid-1960s, USAF aircraft and aircrew losses in the Vietnam War had convinced Tactical Air Command of the need to improve technical and operational skills for the widening conflict. TAC established the Tactical Fighter Weapons Center at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada in 1966 for the expressed purpose of improving fighter operations and tactics. Nellis AFB had been referred to as the "Home of the Fighter Pilot" since the Korean War period of the early 1950s, and had a long history of conducting postgraduate fighter training and operational testing and evaluation of fighter weapons systems. Additionally, the Nellis Range, largest in the free world, readily complemented the new center's mission.

Lineage

  • Established as the USAF Tactical Fighter Weapons Center in 1966

Assignments

Units assigned

Operational units assigned to the USAFWC have been:
Wing
  • 4545th Fighter Warfare Wing, 1966 – 22 August 1969
  • 57th Fighter Weapons Wing, 22 August 1969 – present
  • 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing - ?? - present
Groups
  • 57th Fighter, 1 November 1991 – present
  • 57th Test, 1 November 1991 – 1 October 1996
  • 4440th Tactical Fighter Training
  • 4443d Tactical Training: 26 January 1990 – 1 November 1991
Squadrons
  • 64th Fighter Weapons : 15 October 1972 – 5 October 1990.
  • 65th Fighter Weapons : 15 October 1969 – 7 April 1989.
  • 66th Fighter Weapons: 15 October 1969 – 30 December 1981
  • 414th Fighter Weapons: 15 October 1969 – 30 December 1981
  • 422d Fighter Weapons : 15 October 1969 – 1 November 1991
  • 431st Fighter Weapons : 1 October 1980 – 1 November 1991
  • 433d Fighter Weapons: 1 October 1976 – 30 December 1981
  • 4460th Helicopter: 1 November 1983 – 1 June 1985
  • 4477th Test and Evaluation Flight : 1 April 1977 – 15 July 1990
  • USAF Air Demonstration Squadron: 15 February 1974 – present

Aircraft flown

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