According to Secretary Frank Kendall, Dayton is, and has been, a hub for the United States Air Force (USAF). WYSO Aviation Commentator and Community Voices Producer Dan Patterson offers some perspective on how and why Dayton became so important for the United States’ second-largest military branch.
The Wright Brothers
When Orville and Wilbur Wright sold the United States Army the first military aircraft, the stream of dollars into the Dayton economy had just begun, and it has never really stopped since.
The 1909 Wright Military Flyer met and then exceeded the Army’s contract requirements. The Army purchased the Flyer for $25,000, and the performances above the minimums added $5,000 to the deal. That contract was three pages long when Orville signed on behalf of “The Wright Brothers.”
Compare that with a single Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, which costs around $350 million today and has a purchasing contract that would fill a room full of file cabinets. Those hundreds of millions are cycled through Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the local contractors that work in the related industries. Locally, the “Base” employs over 35,000 people in 2024.
The World Wars
In 1917, the United States Army was sent to fight in the “Great War” and needed to get into the new air war fast. The Army established the Army Aeronautical Engineering Headquarters (AAEHQ) in Dayton and quickly built McCook Field. Prominent engineer, inventor, and industrialist Edward Deeds was made a Colonel in the United States Army Air Service (a forerunner of the USAF), and he picked out the ground for the new airfield right across the river from downtown Dayton.
The First World War ended in November 1918, and while the military was mostly downsizing, the AAEHQ flourished at McCook Field. In addition to researching every aspect of flight, checks were also being written there. The new aviation industry began to be located in the region.
McCook Field was active for ten years. In that decade, aviation technology was pioneered there, but it had become too short and close to the city to accommodate the larger, faster, and more capable aircraft being engineered.
Higher, faster, and further were and remain the watchwords.
“I don’t see anything but a bright future for Dayton."Secretary of the Airforce Frank Kendall
From McCook Field, high-altitude world records were consistently set and broken. The new technology of supercharging aircraft engines for high flying was used.
The Army’s Round the World flights in 1924, which used Douglas World Cruisers and were managed from McCook, demonstrated unprecedented long-distance flying.
The first parachutes were also invented and used there during this era.
So, too, was the flight clothing necessary to survive the frigid temperatures at high altitudes.
Finally, flying totally by instruments and air-to-air refueling was developed at McCook.
The AAEHQ was relocated to Wright Field in Riverside in 1927. After the move to Wright, which, upon opening, became the largest Military air base on the planet, it soon became a world center for aeronautical studies and logistics.
In the midst of the Great Depression, Wright Field continued to make progress, and as World War II approached, the weapons of the next air war were being developed there.
The US was drawn into the war in 1941 but supplied the allies opposing the Axis almost from the start in 1939. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt named our country the "Arsenal of Democracy" as America emerged from the Depression with a considerable capacity to make anything imaginable.
Today
The Wrights started the aviation business here in Dayton, and the expansion of American military aviation solidified that business into an essential and enormous segment of the national economy.
During his recent visit to Dayton, Air Force Secretary Kendall said, “I don’t see anything but a bright future for Dayton. I think there’s a lot of capability here, terrific support from the community, and a very well-established network of both industry and government civilians who support the Air Force extremely well.”
The Wright brothers bet on themselves and their abilities to solve the age-old quest for manned flight, and that bet paid off. Community leaders made a similar bet to keep the Army Aviation Engineering HQ here when they invested in Wright Field in the 1920s. The Air Force roads that lead to Dayton are the payoff to that bet over a century ago.
