Marine Corps Air Station Yuma or MCAS Yuma is a United States Marine Corps air station in Arizona. It is the home of multiple squadrons of F-35B Lightning IIs of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1 (MAWTS-1), Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 (VMX-1) and Marine Fighter Training Squadron 401 (VMFT-401), an air combat adversary squadron of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing of the Marine Corps Reserve. It is a designated Superfund site due to a number of soil and groundwater contaminants, including asbestos. The station is 2 mi from the city of Yuma, Arizona. A joint use civilian-military airport, MCAS Yuma shares airfield facilities with Yuma International Airport and occupies approximately 3000 acre, most of which is flat desert. MCAS Yuma also operates an auxiliary airfield on the Barry M. Goldwater Range.

History

Air Force use

In 1928, the federal government purchased 640 acre near Yuma at the recommendation of Colonel Benjamin F. Fly. Temporary dirt runways were installed for usage by military and civilian planes. It was called Fly Field. The outbreak of World War II transformed the civilian airport into the Yuma Army Airfield. Construction of facilities began on 1 June 1942 and was activated on 15 December Yuma AAF was a single-engine flight training school, operated by the Army Air Forces Flying Training Command, West Coast Training Center, later Western Flying Training Command. Flying training began in January 1943. Its training unit was the 307th Single Engine Flying Training Group which operated AT-6 Texans, reporting to the 37th Flying Training Wing. The base operating unit was the 403d Army Air Force Base Unit. In 1944, the unit was upgraded to multi-engine flight training, operating B-26 Marauders. In addition to the flying training, a Flexible Gunnery School was established at the airfield in November 1943. Flight training was discontinued on 23 April 1945 and gunnery training on 31 May 1945. The base was closed on 1 November 1945. After the war, the airfield was turned over to the Department of the Interior as a headquarters for the Bureau of Land Reclamation.

Marine Corps use

The 4750th Air Defense Wing was inactivated at Vincent AFB on 15 June 1959 and control of the base was passed over to the United States Navy. Nine days later the base was turned over to the United States Marine Corps (USMC). The base was renamed Marine Corps Air Station Yuma (Vincent Field) on 20 July 1962. MCAS Yuma is currently the busiest air station in the Marine Corps, offering excellent year-round flying conditions and thousands of acres of open terrain for air-to-ground weapons ranges (including the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range and the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range- West), and associated restricted airspace for military flight operations. During the 1960s, 70s, and early 1980s, MCAS Yuma was home to VMFAT-101, the Marine Corps' Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) for the F-4 Phantom II, training USMC, U.S. Navy, and NATO/Allied flight crews and maintenance personnel in the F-4B, F-4J, F-4N, and F-4S. Following the transfer of VMFAT-101 to MCAS El Toro, California in the 1980s, MCAS Yuma became the principal Fleet Marine Force, Pacific operating base for the AV-8B Harrier II, under the cognizance of Marine Aircraft Group 13 (MAG-13). Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1 (MAWTS-1) is a major aviation command at MCAS Yuma, conducting training for all Marine Corps tactical aviation units, most notably the Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course. Marine Fighter Training Squadron 401 (VMFT-401) is a Marine Air Reserve squadron also based at MCAS Yuma, containing both active duty and Selected Marine Corps Reservists, providing aerial adversary/aggressor services and dissimilar air combat training (DACT) for all U.S. military services, and selected NATO, Allied, and Coalition partners. This base was also used in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the Marine Corps Airborne Training Center. MCAS Yuma is currently programmed to become the Marine Corps' initial operating base for the F-35B STOVL variant of the F-35 Lightning II, the first of which arrived on 16 November 2012.

Based units

Flying and notable non-flying units based at MCAS Yuma.

United States Marine Corps

Marine Corps Installations – West 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing 4th Marine Aircraft Wing Deputy Commandant for Aviation, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps Training and Education Command

Additional bibliography

Attribution