Whiting Field

NAAS North Field seems awash with aircraft, spotted and ready for a busy day’s training activities, 6 Jun ’60. In the foreground are VT-2 T-28B/C Trojans and, upper center in the distance, are VT-6 Beechcraft SNB-5s used to train helicopter students in instrument flight procedures.

The busiest field in the Training Command today is 58-year-old NAS Whiting Field, home to Training Wing Five’s three T-34C primary/intermediate maritime prop squadrons, two TH-57B/C Sea Ranger helicopter training squadrons and the helicopter and fixed-wing instructor instructional units. Eighty three percent of all student Naval Aviators conduct a portion of their initial flight training at Whiting, which averages over 350 flights a day.

Construction was begun on the largest of Pensacola’s auxiliary fields in early 1943, and NAAS Whiting Field was not completed until November. The new field, located 35 miles northeast of Pensacola and six miles north of Milton, was planned to incorporate two individual fields about a mile from one another with base facilities located between the two. Both Whiting’s North and South Fields featured four 6,000-ft. runways, a large parking mat and two big red-brick hangars.

Despite the fact that construction was not yet complete and assigned personnel were temporarily living in tents, the field was officially dedicated by RADM George D. Murray, commandant of the Naval Air Training Center, Pensacola, on 16 July 1943. In attendance at the South Field ceremony was the recent widow of CAPT Kenneth Whiting, Naval Aviator No. 16, for whom the field was named.

Members of VN-3 observe as one of the unit’s SNJs arrives on 1 Jul ’43 from NAAS Saufley Field, two weeks prior to Whiting Field’s commissioning.

Fifteen days earlier, SNJs of VN-3A and -3B from Chevalier and Saufley Fields had arrived at their new South Field home to inaugurate operations in basic and radio instrument instruction as part of the intermediate phase of the World War II training program.

With the two fields completed, VN-8C and its large fleet of SNBs arrived at North Field from NAAS Corry in November 1943 to conduct intermediate multi-engine landplane (VB-2) instruction. The squadron moved back to Corry in December 1944 and was replaced by operational training squadron VB4 OTU #4, flying Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberators. With all the multi-engine and basic instrument instruction conducted at the base, a large building was constructed to house the numerous Link trainers and six big Link celestial navigation trainers manned by WAVES (women accepted for volunteer emergency service).

After the war, Whiting became a naval air station under control of the new Naval Air Advanced Training Command, Jacksonville, Fla. Based at Whiting from 1946 to almost the end of 1947 were VB-2 and VB-4 advanced training units flying Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateers and Lockheed PV-2 Venturas; the advanced carrier qualification and LSO training unit flying F6F Hellcats, SB2C Helldivers, TBM Avengers and SNJ-3/5Cs; and two photo training units flying the PB4Y-1P and F6F-5P.

In a Training Command reorganization in 1947, the Basic Training Command and its SNJs moved to the Pensacola area and advanced multi-engine instruction transferred to NAS Corpus Christi. Whiting was redesignated in spring 1948 as an auxiliary air station. The same year, Basic Training Unit One moved from Corry Field, split into BTU-1A at North Field and -1B at South Field, and began conducting 50 hours of primary instruction for the nearly 300 SNJ-4, -5 and -6s assigned to the two squadrons.

A student and instructor debrief after returning to NAAS Whiting Field from an instructional flight in a TO-1 Shooting Star. F9F-2 Panthers flown by the Blue Angels and also based at Whiting, are seen at the left. The Blues pilots were also instructors in Jet Training Unit One.

Owing to the base’s newer facilities and longer runways, the first jets assigned to the Training Command were sent to Whiting Field in July 1948. Fifteen single-seat Lockheed TO-1s (Air Force F-80 Shooting Stars) arrived at North Field to form Jet Training Unit One after being transferred from VF-52 at NAS San Diego. Once in business, the squadron conducted a four-week syllabus of jet transition instruction for newly winged Navy and Marine Corps VF students. In September JTU-1 was joined by the Blue Angels and their F9F-2 Panthers. With the outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950, the Blue Angels went into combat and in July 1951, JTU-1 transferred to newly opened NAAS Kingsville.

From 1951 to 1956 Whiting devoted its total efforts to primary instruction. It was during this period that the Training Command introduced new aircraft, consolidated bases and made major syllabus changes to respond to the Navy’s predominantly jet-equipped air wings and squadrons.

Beginning in late 1955, the T-34B Mentor replaced the SNJ Texan in the primary phase at Whiting while the T-28 Trojan supplanted the venerable “J bird” in basic. Primary was moved to NAS Saufley in late 1956 while Saufley’s BTG-3 T-28s moved to Whiting to train prop students in the basic instrument/tactics phase. BTG-2, the Training Command’s remaining basic T-28 squadron, transferred to Whiting from Corry in July 1958. In December 1959, the multi-engine training group (METG), the pre-helicopter instrument phase, moved its operations to Whiting from Forrest Sherman (NAS Pensacola).

An SNJ-5 Texan, flown by Basic Training Unit One, wore a bright yellow paint scheme, 1953

This SNB-2 assigned to VN-8C was utilized as a land-based bomber trainer in World War II and later as a pre-helo instrument trainer.

By the end of the decade, prop students reported from primary at Saufley to BTG-2 at North Field for T-28 fam/precision/aerobatics and basic instruments. Students then progressed to BTG-3 at South Field for radio instruments, two-and-four plane formation and air-to-air gunnery before carrier qualification. Those selected for the helicopter pipeline returned to South Field after CQ, reporting to the METG for advanced instrument training in the Beechcraft SNB-5.

On 1 May 1960, BTG-2, -3 and the METG were redesignated as separate squadrons and formally established as VT-2, VT-3 and VT-6, respectively.

During the 1960s, Whiting concentrated on T-28 basic prop training. The eagerly anticipated air-to-air gunnery phase was eliminated in VT-3 in mid-1963, and in January 1965 VT-2 and VT-3 began parallel T-28 basic instructional programs due to the increased number of students required to meet the augmented pilot training rate prompted by the Vietnam War. At the same time, VT-6’s ancient SNBs were replaced by T-28s and in July 1966 the squadron returned to Sherman Field. In 1965 the field underwent a major facelift as new living spaces replaced old WW II-era “splintervilles,” together with a new training building and upgrades to both fields’ runways and ramp areas.

The T-28B Trojan, this one assigned to VT-3, trained thousands of Naval Aviators from 1952 until its retirement at NAS Corpus Christi in 1984.

The T-34B Mentor began replacing the SNJ as the primary trainer in BTU-1 in late 1955.

As a result of a major reorganization of the Training Command, Whiting Field in January 1972 became the home of Training Wing Five. After 30 years of working with fixed-wing aviators, Whiting began rotary-wing activities when HT-8, the primary helicopter training squadron, and HT-18, the advanced squadron, moved to South Field after Ellyson Field was closed.

January 1974 began with the sounds of snarling T-28 engines mixed with the whine of turboshaft engines and the “whop-whop” of the rotor blades of TH-57 and TH-1L helicopters. In November 1977 the first of the new T-34C Turbo Mentors arrived at TraWing 5 to replace the primary-phase T-34B and the basic-phase T-28. By 1983 the last T-28 had been retired and all three North Field squadrons conducted primary and intermediate prop training. Two years later, HT-8 began parallel primary and advanced rotary-wing instruction.

In the 1990s VT-3’s Red Knights were designated as the first joint primary training squadron. The era of joint USAF/Navy flight training had begun.

Below: The T-34C Turbo Mentor replaced the piston-powered T-34B and T-28 beginning in Nov ’77, and will itself be replaced by the T-6A Texan II beginning in 2003.

Helicopter training moved to Whiting from NAS Ellyson Field in 1974. An HT-18 TH-57C flies over the Florida panhandle on a training flight, 1998.

Today Whiting Field uses 13 outlying fields bearing familiar names: Pace, Spencer, Silverhill, Wolf, Barin, Saufley, Site 8, Summerdale, Evergreen, Brewton, Holley, Harold and Santa Rosa to conduct its helicopter and turboprop flight instructional activities. Soon Whiting will look forward to receiving the Navy’s first T-6A Texan II joint training aircraft that is to begin replacing the T-34C Turbo Mentor in 2003.