page_title: Pecos Municipal Airport
section_title: Pecos Army Airfield
hierarchical_section_title: Pecos Municipal Airport / History / Pecos Army Airfield
caption_attribution_description: English: Pecos Army Airfield - Vultee BT-13 in a Two-Ship Formation
context_page_description: Pecos Municipal Airport is a city-owned airport two miles southwest of Pecos, in Reeves County, Texas, United States. The FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2009–2013 categorized it as a general aviation airport.
context_section_description: Designated as Pecos Army Airfield (PAAF), the field was activated on 11 July 1942 while still under construction.   It was assigned to the United States Army Air Forces  Western Flying Training Command, 38th Flying Training Wing as a primary (level 1) pilot training airfield.   The first commander, Col. Harry C. Wisehart, arrived on June 28, 1942, as project officer. The first military units to arrive were the 744th School Squadron (100 men) and the 341st Air Base Squadron (18 men). A week later five more school squadrons, each with 80 men, arrived from Lemoore Army Air Field, California, as the vanguard of the eventual population of 4,000. It first was used as a basic pilot school. Pilot training aircraft included the Cessna AT-17 and the North American BT-14.
  At its peak, on April 30, 1944, the field numbered 4,304 people, including 482 officers, 972 cadets and student officers, 2,218 enlisted personnel (including 200 WACs), and 604 civilian employees, of which 25 were WASPs. This population, nearly as large as that of Pecos itself, placed a great strain on the town's resources.
  PAAF consisted chiefly of "theater of operations" type buildings-cheap, rapidly constructed, single-story structures covered with black tarpaper. It also had two large hangars, extensive maintenance facilities, and barely adequate eating and living quarters. Off-base housing in Pecos and neighboring towns was very limited, for an even larger airfield, Pyote Air Force Base, had been built twenty miles (32 km) east. PAAF eventually set up dormitories and small apartments to house civilian employees and some military families on base.
  The first Pecos class, designated 43-A, graduated 133 cadets and student officers after nine weeks of combined ground school and flight training. In all, PAAF produced seventeen classes of basic pilots at roughly one-month intervals, the classes varying from ninety to 528 men. With an elimination rate ranging from 3 percent to 29 percent per class, a total of 3,367 finished the course.
  The field was re-designated an advanced pilot school (twin-engine) on December 29, 1943.  As basic pilot training ended on January 7, 1944, no time was lost converting to advanced pilot training by the newly redesignated 3027th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Advanced 2-Engine). Col. Olin C. Bushey relieved Colonel Wisehart as commander on August 28, 1943, and was succeeded in turn by colonels Harry B. Fisher (August 19, 1944) and Harold D. Smith (March 3, 1945).
  Advanced classes ranged in size from 245 to 526, and fewer students were washed out than in basic training. When the last advanced class at PAAF, 45-B, received silver wings and commissions as second lieutenants or appointments as flight officers on April 15, 1945, the active mission of the field ended. Twelve classes had by then produced 4,215 pilots.
  The airfield was placed on "temporary standby" status on May 1, 1945, and was never again an active military installation.  Although the city hoped for continuing federal use for the field, it was closed on May 12, 1945 and deactivated on August 30. A year later it returned to municipal control.
caption: Basic School Vultee BT-13 Single Engine Trainers fly in formation
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