page_title: 337th Aeronautical Systems Group
section_title: Cold War
hierarchical_section_title: 337th Aeronautical Systems Group / History / Cold War
caption_attribution_description: English: 460th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron Convair F-102A-90-CO Delta Dagger 57-838 337th Fighter Group, Portland International Airport, Oregon, April 1963 57-838 was WFU and retired to AMARC on May 15, 1971
context_page_description: The 337th Aeronautical Systems Group is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with the Aeronautical Systems Center of Air Force Materiel Command at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where it was inactivated in 2008.
  The group was first activated in 1942 at Morris Field, North Carolina as the 337th Fighter Group. During World War II it acted as a Replacement Training Unit for fighter pilots. The group was disbanded in 1944 in a major reorganization of Army Air Forces training units.
  The 337th was activated again in 1955, when it replaced the 503d Air Defense Group at Portland International Airport as part of Air Defense Command's Project Arrow, which was designed to revive fighter units that had served during World War II and replace ADC's post-war units. It provided air defense for the Pacific northwest until it was inactivated in 1966, earning two Air Force Outstanding Unit Awards.
  In January 2005 the Training Aircraft Systems Group was activated as part of the Air Force Materiel Command Transformation, which replaced traditional procurement offices with wings, groups and squadrons.
context_section_description: The group was reconstituted, redesignated as the 337th Fighter Group (Air Defense) and activated at Portland International Airport in August 1955 as part of Air Defense Command's Project Arrow, which was designed to bring back on the active list the fighter units which had compiled memorable records in the two world wars.  At Portland, the group assumed the personnel and equipment of the inactivating 503d Air Defense Group, while its 460th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which moved to Portland from McGhee-Tyson Airport, took over the radar equipped and Mighty Mouse rocket armed Northrop F-89D Scorpion aircraft and personnel of the 503d's 497th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, which moved to Geiger Field, Washington.
  The group operated interceptors to provide active air defense in the 25th NORAD Region area of responsibility.  It also served as the host organization for regular United States Air Force units at Portland International Airport and was assigned a number of support organizations to perform this mission.  In May 1958, the group converted from F-89Ds to supersonic Convair F-102 Delta Dagger aircraft equipped with data link for interception control through the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment system and capable of launching the AIM-4 Falcon.
  During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Continental Air Defense Command directed the group to place all its interceptors on five-minute alert.  Unlike most ADC groups, however, the group did not disperse part of its strength to other bases.  The increased alert posture was maintained through mid-November, when CONAD returned units to their normal alert status, except for those under the control of its 32d Region, which controlled air defense in the Southeastern United States.
  Although the number of ADC interceptor squadrons remained almost constant in the early 1960s, attrition (and the fact that production lines closed in 1961) caused a gradual drop in the number of planes assigned to a squadron, from 24 to typically 18 by 1964.  The force reduction continued, finally resulting in a reduction in the number of interceptor units, and the group was inactivated in the spring of 1966.  In 1985 the group was redesignated the 337th Tactical Fighter Group, although it remained inactive.
caption: 337th Fighter Group F-102 at Portland International Airport[note 4]
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