31st Combat Training Squadron
military unit
The 31st Combat Training Squadron is an active United States Air Force unit. It is currently assigned to the Nevada Test and Training Range at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.
The squadron was first activated as the 31st Pursuit Squadron for the air defense of the Panama Canal shortly before the United States entered World War II. It served in this role until 1944 when the reduced threat to the canal and the Caribbean permitted its transfer to the United States, where it was inactivated. The squadron was reactivated a few months later as an element of the 412th Fighter Group, the first Army Air Forces unit equipped with jet fighters. It was inactivated in 1946 when the 412th group and its squadrons were replaced by elements of the 1st Fighter Group.
In 1953, the squadron was activated as the 31st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, an air defense unit in the Pacific northwest. It was inactivated two years later in a major realignment of Air Defense Command fighter unit designations. It was again active in the air defense role from 1956 to 1958 in Michigan and Alaska.
It became a training unit in 1969, first training tactical reconnaissance aircrews on the McDonnell RF-4C Phantom II from 1969 to 1971 as the '31st Tactical Reconnaissance Training Squadron, then acting as the "schoolhouse" for F-4 aircrews from 1982 to 1988.
A ceremony activating the 31st Combat Training Squadron (Virtual Test and Training Center) was held on 9 April 2021, at Nellis Air Force Base.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4634891. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1946, 1953 and 1956.
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This entry incorporates text from “31st Combat Training Squadron” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.