Army Air Forces Technical Training Command
| Technical Division, Air Training Command | |
|---|---|
Aircraft Mechanic Students at Keesler Field, Mississippi performing a general inspection of a Bell P-39 Airacobra ground training aircraft
|
|
| Active | 1941-1949 |
| Country |
 United States
|
| Branch |
 United States Army Air Forces United States Air Force
|
| Type | Command and Control |
| Role | Training |
| Part of |
Army Air Forces Training Command Air Training Command |
| Engagements |
|
| Insignia | |
| Emblem of AAF Eastern Technical Training Command |  |
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Technical Division, Air Training Command is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was assigned to the Air Training Command, stationed at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. It was inactivated on 14 November 1949.
Technical training in the Air Service began about the same time as pilot training. In order to keep its airplanes operational, there was a need for skilled mechanics and other technicians. At first, men who already possessed some mechanical experience received training at civilian trade schools and state universities. Problems arouse and the expense led the Army set up two mechanic schools, one at Kelly Field, Texas and another in a large building in St Paul, Minnesota that the War Department took over.
During World War I, the school at Kelly Field had trained over 2,000 more mechanics. Though the school in St Paul closed after the end of the war, Kelly remained in operation and trained some 5,000 more mechanics before January 1921. When the supply depot at Love Field, Dallas, closed in 1921 and moved to Kelly, the Air Service mechanics's school was forced to move to Chanute Field, Illinois. In 1922, the school was expanded when the photography school at Langley Field, Virginia, and the communications school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, both joined the mechanics course at Chanute, congregating all technical training in the Air Service at that location. The facility at Chanute was re-designated as the Air Corps Technical School in 1926, with the former separate schools becoming "Departments".
In 1930, two more Departments were established at Chanute, the Department of Clerical Instruction and the Department of Armament. Technical training expanded in 1938 at Lowry Field, Colorado, when the Photography, Armament and Clerical instruction were moved from Chanute to the new facilities in Denver. In 1939, Scott Field, Illinois, came under the Air Corps Technical School when the Department of Basic Instruction, responsible for the basic training of all new recruits, was established at Scott. It moved to Chanute in 1940 when Scott became the Air Corps Radio school.
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