The 3rd Flying Training Squadron is part of the 71st Operations Group under the 71st Flying Training Wing. It operates the T-1A Jayhawk aircraft conducting advanced phase tanker/transport flight training.
The 3rd FTS is the third-oldest squadron in the Air Force, with over 95 years of service to the nation, its origins date to the organization of the 3rd Aero Squadron on 1 November 1916 at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Deployed to the Philippines after World War I, during the 1941-1942 Battle of the Philippines, it was wiped out, with some of its personnel being forced by the Japanese to endure the Bataan Death March. It was not re-activated until 1973.
Mission
To qualify warriors with the skills and attitude necessary to become the world's best combat airlift and tanker pilots.
History
Origins
The 3rd Flying Training Squadron dates to the organization of the 3rd Aero Squadron on 1 November 1916 at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Most of the officers and men of the Squadron were transferred from the Aviation School at Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, where, at the time, all Army aviators were trained. There, it replaced the 1st Aero Squadron, whose members were sent to Columbus Airfield, New Mexico as part of the Punitive expedition against Pancho Villa. There, the squadron may have operated some Curtiss JN-3s and possibly some Curtiss N-8s, preparing them to be sent south to Columbus.
In December 1916, Congress authorized the lease of a 700-acre tract of land seven miles south of San Antonio, Texas for a new airfield to accommodate the rapidly expanding Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. By March 1917, men from the 3rd Aero Squadron were hard at work clearing the cotton plants from the land and laying foundations for hangars and mess halls at what would become Kelly Field. On 5 April 1917, one day before the United States entered World War I, four Curtiss JN-4 "Jennies" landed at the new field.
On 29 August 1917 the 3rd Aero Squadron left Kelly Field for Fort Sill, Oklahoma with 12 Curtiss R4 airplanes under the command of a Captain Weir to establish a new training airfield. The squadron was assigned to Henry Post Field (named after 2nd Lt. Henry B. Post who was killed in a plane crash in California in 1914). It was re-designated as Squadron A, Henry Post Field, Oklahoma. on 22 July 1918. At Post Field, the 3rd was most likely an observer training unit in support of the United States Army Field Artillery School. In September 1917, the 4th Aero Squadron was transferred to Post Field from Fort Sam Houston, as a second training squadron. The 3rd was ordered to transfer 135 men to the 4th to bring the squadron up to its authorized strength. The 3rd was redesignated as "Squadron A", with the 4th being redesignated as "Squadron B" in July 1918. Both squadrons were demobilized at the end of World War I on 2 January 1919.
Philippines Duty
The unit was re-formed as a new unit, designated as the 3rd Aero Squadron, on 13 May 1919 at Mitchel Field, New York. Many of the men were experienced mechanics and officers who had served either in France or at training units in the United States during World War I. After being organized, the squadron was transferred by train to San Francisco, California, where it boarded a ship bound for Manila, in the Philippine Islands, arriving on 18 August. The squadron was assigned to the Philippine Department, and was stationed initially at Camp Stotsenburg on Luzon. Some Dayton-Wright DH-4s, which were used as trainers during the war in the United States, arrived later in 1919 and were assigned to the squadron.
On 10 March 1920, along with the 2d Aero Squadron, which had arrived in December 1919, the squadrons were organized into the 1st Group (Observation). On 14 March 1921, the squadron was re-designated as the 3rd Squadron (Pursuit), its mission was to provide coastal aerial defense as part of the 4th Composite Group, a re-designation of the 1st Group. In 1924, the squadron was formally consolidated with its World War I predecessor organization, giving it a history dating to 1 November 1916.
Exercises and maneuvers with Army ground forces and Naval forces were a regular and important part of its mission. In the Philippines, the squadron received a wide variety of second-line hand-me-down aircraft transferred from units in the United States during the austere years of Air Corps procurement during the 1920s and 1930s