The unit was a General Surveillance Radar squadron providing for the air defense of the United States. It was first activated at
McChord AFB, WA as an aircraft control squadron to operate the 505th Aircraft Control & Warning Group's Air Defense Control Center for the Provisional Northwestern Air Defense Sector.[1] It soon moved to the Lashup radar site L-31 at Everett, WA (later
Paine Field) and added the detection and control mission as well. It was inactivated in the general reorganization of
Air Defense Command (ADC) in February 1952. It was soon reactivated and performed the same mission at the mobile site M-118 at
Burns AFS, OR. Became part of the
Semi Automatic Ground Environment system in 1962. Inactivated in 1970.
The Squadron was activated again in 1973 to replace Operating Location F of the
630th Radar Squadron at Lake Charles AFS as part of the Southern Air Defense System (SADS).[2] SADS had been established because of the inadequacy of the radar coverage to the south of the United States that had been dramatically illustrated whan a Cuban
MiG-17 went undetected before it landed at
Homestead AFB,[2] and two years later, an
An-24 similarly arrived unannounced at
New Orleans International Airport.[2] As a result, ADC established SADS with the squadron operating a manual control center at the Houston ARTCC and added radars to supplement the existing
Federal Aviation Administration coverage in the area.[2] However, the squadron was inactivated little more than a year later.[3]
Lineage
Constituted 1947 as 634th Aircraft Control Squadron
Activated on 21 May 1947
Redesignated 634th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron on 8 December 1949