<item><hi format=bold>Tenant Units:</hi> HQ Aeronautics Systems Center (AFMC); <hot id=445aw0u0vmn>445th AW</hot>—<hot id=c1410002vmn>C-141B</hot> (AFRes); Air Force Museum
<item><hi format=bold>Location and Origin of Name:</hi> 10 miles northeast of Dayton, and named in honor of aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright, and First Lieutenant Frank S. Patterson; the former pair were the first to pilot a powered, heavier-than-air flying machine ,at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on 17 December 1903; Lieutenant Patterson was killed on 19 June 1918 near Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot while testing machine gun synchronization through the propeller of a DH-4
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<p>The facility currently called Wright-Patterson AFB is an amalgamation of Wilbur Wright Field and Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot, which were established in 1917 and 1918. Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot subsequently became Patterson Field housing aviation supplies and equipment, and became a repair site. During World War II the site chiefly supported Fairfield Air Depot. Air Corps Maintenance Command was formed in 1941. Wright Field absorbed the aeronautical engineering role from McCook Field in 1927 and concentrated on this activity during World War II. The two bases were merged in January 1948 when Wright-Patterson AFB was created. Air Research and Development Command (ARDC) was located between November 1950 and May 1951, when it moved to Baltimore, Maryland. The Wright Air Development Center as established in April 1951, and changed to Divisional status in 1959 for two years before becoming the Aeronautical Systems Division (ASD). The base was upgraded in 1959 to accommodate SAC bombers, with the 4043rd Strategic Wing formed in April 1959. That unit inactivated in February 1963 having been replaced by the 17th BW which reformed three months earlier. The latter wing moved to Beale AFB in September 1975, ending SAC operations at the base. The Aeronautical Museum was established in December 1960 as the primary location for preserved USAF aircraft and associated systems. The 4950th Test Wing was activated in March 1971 as the flying unit of the test aircraft flown by ASD. All 4950th aircraft were centralized at Edwards AFB during 1993/94, with Wright-Patterson housing just two squadrons of AFRes C-141Bs.
