Luke Air Force Base is a
United States Air Force base located seven miles (11 km) west of the
central business district of
Glendale, in
Maricopa County,
Arizona,
United States. It is also about west of
Phoenix, Arizona.
Luke AFB is a major training base of the
Air Education and Training Command (AETC), training pilots in the
F-16 Fighting Falcon. On 31 March 2011 it was announced that the
F-35 Lightning II would replace the F-16 as the primary training aircraft at Luke, although the date of deployment of the new aircraft to Luke and reorganization plans were not announced.
Overview
Luke Air Force Base is the largest and only active-duty
F-16 Fighting Falcon training base in the world with more than 200 F-16s assigned. The host command at Luke is the
56th Fighter Wing (56 FW), under
Air Education and Training Command's
19th Air Force.
The 56th FW is composed of four groups, 27 squadrons, including six fighter squadrons. There are several tenant units on base, including the
944th Fighter Wing, assigned to
10th Air Force and the
Air Force Reserve. More than 470 pilots graduate from Luke annually and proceed to combat assignments throughout the world. The 56th Fighter Wing also trains more than 700 maintenance technicians each year.
The base population includes about 7,500 military members and 15,000 family members. With about 80,000 retired military members living in greater Phoenix, the base services a total population of more than 100,000...
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