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Military unit From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 312th Fighter Squadron is an active United States Air Force unit, stationed at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. Its last previous assignment was with the 58th Tactical Training Wing at Luke, where it was inactivated on 18 January 1991. Upon inactivation, the squadron's personnel, equipment and aircraft were transferred to the 311th Fighter Squadron.
312th Fighter Squadron
 | |
|---|---|
312th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron F-16D[lower-alpha 1] | |
| Active | 1942–1944; 1984–1991; 2023–present |
| Country |  United States |
| Branch |  United States Air Force |
| Role | Fighter |
| Part of | Air Combat Command |
| Garrison/HQ | Luke Air Force Base, Arizona |
| Insignia | |
| Patch with 312th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron emblem |  |
| 312th Fighter Squadron emblem[lower-alpha 2][1] |  |
| 1984–1991 Tail Code | LF |
The squadron was first activated during World War II and served as a fighter replacement training unit until it was disbanded in 1944 in a reorganization of Army Air Forces training units. It was reconstituted and activated once again in 1984.
The squadron was activated as part of the 338th Fighter Group at Dale Mabry Field, Florida in July 1942.[1][2] The 312th initially flew the Bell P-39 Airacobra.[1]
The squadron's mission was to act as a Replacement Training Unit (RTU). RTUs were oversized units that trained individual pilots or aircrews following their graduation from flight school.[3] In June 1943, the 338th Group began a split organization and the 312th and 441st Fighter Squadrons moved to Perry Army Air Field, Florida,[1][4] while group headquarters and the other two squadrons remained at Dale Mabry Field.[2][5][6] After September 1943, the group focused on Republic P-47 Thunderbolt training, although the squadron had some P-40s in 1944.[1][2]
However, the Army Air Forces was finding that standard military units, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization were not proving well adapted to the training mission. Accordingly, it adopted a more functional system for its training bases in which each base was organized into a separate numbered unit.[7] The squadron was disbanded in May 1944,[1] and its personnel, equipment and mission transferred to the 342d AAF Base Unit (Replacement Training Unit, Fighter).
The 312th was reconstituted, designated the 312th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron and reactivated by Tactical Air Command at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona in October 1984[8] as the first General Dynamics F-16C Fighting Falcon training squadron in the USAF. The squadron once again acted as a replacement training unit. It was initially equipped with new Block 25 Fighting Falcons, but it converted to new Block 42 planes in 1990. Its aircraft carried "LF" tail code with a black tail stripe outlined in red. It was inactivated in 1991[8] and most of its aircraft reassigned to 308th, 309th and 310th Fighter Squadrons.
On 1 June 2023, the squadron was activated and redesignated as the 312th Fighter Squadron as an F-35A Lightning II training unit, primarily training F-35 crew for the Belgian Air Component at Luke Air Force Base.[8]
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