page_title: Continental Air Command
section_title: Post World War II Air Force Reserve
hierarchical_section_title: Continental Air Command / History / Post World War II Air Force Reserve
caption_attribution_description: English: Production P-80 Shooting Stars at Langley Air Force Base, taken from http://www.langley.af.mil/staff/ho/images/p80.jpg and uploaded by Willy Logan.
context_page_description: Continental Air Command was a Major Command of the United States Air Force responsible primarily for administering the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.
  During the Korean War, ConAC provided the necessary augmentation to the regular Air Force while it rebuilt itself under wartime conditions. Later, during the 1950s, it was a training force for reservists with no prior military service. ConAC provided peacetime airlift missions for the Air Force. It was mobilized twice in 1961 and 1962 by president Kennedy for the Berlin and Cuban Missile Crisis. Lastly, it was used by president Lyndon B. Johnson for airlift operations into the Dominican Republic and South Vietnam.
  It was inactivated in 1968 and replaced by Headquarters, Air Force Reserve.
context_section_description: See: Air National Guard for ConAC History.
  To clarify the situation and provide both services sounder legal bases from which to operate, Congress passed the Army and Air Force Authorization Act of 1949 which became law on 10 July 1950. The law stipulated that the Air Force of the United States would consist of the U.S. Air Force (the Regular Air Force), the Air National Guard of the United States, the Air National Guard when it was in the service of the United States, and the U.S. Air Force Reserve. The Air Force of the United States was to have an authorized strength of not more than seventy groups with separate Air Force squadrons, reserve groups, and whatever supporting and auxiliary and reserve units as might be required.
  The Air Force established the Office of the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff for Reserve Forces in Headquarters USAF. It also reorganized its field structure for reserve matters, establishing the Continental Air Command (ConAC)  on 1 December 1948, with headquarters at Mitchel AFB, New York.  ConAC had responsibility for both Air Force Reserve as well as coordination with the state-controlled Air National Guard organizations. At the same time, the Air Defense Command and the Tactical Air Command were subordinated as operational air commands of the new organization. ConAC controlled the First, Fourth, Tenth and Fourteenth Air Forces.  The Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces remained under TAC control, although they were assigned to ConAC.
  The Air Force Reserve program for fiscal year 1950 consisted of four distinct parts: the Air Force Reserve training centers now would support reserve combat wings, individual mobilization assignments, a new program of corollary units integrated with active force units, and a Volunteer Air Reserve training program to accommodate all reservists not fitted into one of the other three programs. Headquarters USAF and the major commands were to conduct the corollary unit and mobilization assignment programs while ConAC would handle the rest.  ConAC was to operate 23 centers to train 25 combat wings. The Air Force Reserve program was to become effective on 1 July 1949 would include twenty
  troop carrier wings equipped with C-47s or C-46s and five light bombardment wings flying B-26s.
  With regards to Air Defense Command and Tactical Air Command, ConAC faced severe issues as the tactical air support mission was fundamentally different from the air defense mission. Units assigned to ConAC were dual-trained and in case of war, were expected to revert to their primary roles after the North American air defense battle was won.
caption: ConAC Fourth Air Force 1st Fighter Wing Lockheed P-80s at March AFB, California 1948.
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