Laredo Air Force Base

Laredo Air Force Base Laredo Army Airfield
Part of Air Training Command (ATC)
Laredo, Texas
2006 USGS Airphoto
Laredo AFB
Coordinates	27°32′37″N 99°27′41″W / 27.54361°N 99.46139°W / 27.54361; -99.46139Coordinates: 27°32′37″N 99°27′41″W / 27.54361°N 99.46139°W / 27.54361; -99.46139
Type	Air Force Base
Site information
Controlled by	United States Air Force
Site history
Built	1942
In use	Open 1942 - closed 1973

Laredo Air Force Base is an inactivated United States Air Force near Laredo, Texas. First activated in 1942 as Laredo Army Airfield, the facility instructed recruits in aerial gunnery during World War II, then as a United States Air Force base in the 1950s and 1960s, performed Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) as part of Air Training Command. The base was inactivated in 1973 as part of the drawdown after the Vietnam War.

Opened on 23 September 1942, Laredo AAF was part of the Eastern Flying Training Command under the Army Air Forces Training Command at Fort Worth AAF, Texas. The 2d Aerial Gunnery Training Group of seven squadrons (1021st - 1027th Gunnery Training) taught aerial gunnery to new cadets primarily for B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator duty, training on the .50 and .30 caliber Browning machine guns and their firing platforms. In 1944, the 2126th Army Air Force Base Unit became the host unit at the airfield, switching training to B-29 Superfortress, and briefly to B-32 Dominator instruction. Classes in aerial gunnery were ended in September 1945 with the war ended.

The field became inactive in late 1945 and the property reverted to the city of Laredo, which used it as a municipal airport until 1950. That year, the base was reactivated and renamed Laredo Air Force Base in April 1952 to provide intermediate and advanced flight training for jet pilots, including pilot trainees from 24 countries.

The initial host and training unit stationed at Laredo AFB was the 3640th Pilot Training Wing, being equipped with T-28 Trojan propeller and T-33 Shooting Star jet trainers. In the early 1960s, the Air Training Command transitioned to the Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) concept, where student pilots would take all flight training from basic through advanced at a single base. In 1964, the T-38 Talon became the primary trainer for the unit, and the T-41 Mescalero and T-37 Tweet aircraft were included in the flight training school.