The 678th Air Defense Group is a disbanded

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

organization. Its last assignment was with the

20th Air Division The 20th Air Division is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with Tactical Air Command at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida where it was inactivated on 1 March 1983. During most of the division's history it ...

Air Defense Command Aerospace Defense Command was a major command (military formation), command of the United States Air Force, responsible for air defense of the continental United States. It was activated in 1968 and disbanded in 1980. Its predecessor, Air De ...

(ADC) at

Tyndall Air Force Base Tyndall Air Force Base is a United States Air Force Base located east of Panama City, Florida. The base was named in honor of World War I pilot 1st Lt. Frank Benjamin Tyndall. The base operating unit and host wing is the 325th Fighter Wing (3 ...

, Florida. The

group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...

was formed in 1970 when ADC expanded its

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

units that operated

Back-Up Interceptor Control Backup Interceptor Control (BUIC, ) was the Electronic Systems Division 416M System to backup the SAGE 416L System in the United States and Canada. BUIC deployed Cold War command, control, and coordination systems to SAGE radar stations to create ...

sites from squadron sized units to groups. From 1977 until it was inactivated in 1983 the 678th was responsible for operating the Southern Air Defense System.

History

The 678th Air Defense Group replaced the 678th Radar Squadron (SAGE) (formerly the 678th Aircraft Warning & Control Squadron) at

in 1970.Cornett & Johnson, p. 85 The group operated a

(BUIC) site with the mission to back up the centralized and vulnerable

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of mainframe computer, large computers and associated computer network, networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image ...

(SAGE) operations center of the

Gunter Air Force Base Gunter Annex is a United States Air Force installation located in the North-northeast suburbs of Montgomery, Alabama. The base is named after former Montgomery mayor William Adams Gunter. Until 1992 it was known as Gunter Air Force Base or G ...

, Alabama. The BUIC III operated by the group gave the unit a semi-automatic control capability, unlike earlier BUIC systems that required manual operation. The group provided air defense mission command and control from 1970 to 1983. It was a component of

Aerospace Defense Command Aerospace Defense Command was a major command of the United States Air Force, responsible for air defense of the continental United States. It was activated in 1968 and disbanded in 1980. Its predecessor, Air Defense Command, was establishe ...

(ADC) (later transferred to

Tactical Air Command Tactical Air Command (TAC) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. It was a List of Major Commands of the United States Air Force, Major Command of the United States Air Force, established on 21 March 1946 and headquartered at Lang ...

(TAC)) Air Defense Weapons Center from 1974 to 1981. The group earned an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award for exceptionally meritorious service for the period 1 June 1970 through 1 June 1972.AF Pamphlet 900-2, Unit Decorations, Awards and Campaign Participation Credits, Vol II
Department of the Air Force, Washington, DC, 30 Sep 76 , p. 87 In 1969, the inadequacy of the radar coverage to the south of the United States had been dramatically illustrated whan a Cuban

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 (; NATO reporting name: Fresco) is a high-subsonic fighter aircraft produced in the Soviet Union from 1952 and was operated by air forces internationally. The MiG-17 was license-built in China as the Shenyang J-5 and ...

went undetected before it landed at

Homestead Air Force Base Homestead Air Reserve Base (Homestead ARB), previously known as Homestead Air Force Base (Homestead AFB) is located in Miami–Dade County, Florida, to the northeast of the city of Homestead. It is home to the 482nd Fighter Wing (482 FW) o ...

, south of

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, Florida.Leonard. Vol I, p. 172 and two years later, an

Antonov An-24 The Antonov An-24 (Russian/ Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-24) (NATO reporting name: Coke) is a 44-seat twin turboprop transport/passenger aircraft designed in 1957 in the Soviet Union by the Antonov Design Bureau and manufactured by the Kyiv ...

similarly arrived unannounced at

New Orleans International Airport Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is an international airport under Class B airspace in the City of Kenner, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is owned by the City of New Orleans and is west of downtown New Or ...

. As a result, ADC established The Southern Air Defense System (SADS). Initially, the

630th Radar Squadron 63 may refer to: * 63 (number) * one of the years 63 BC, AD 63, 1963, 2063 * +63, telephone country code in the Philippines * Flight 63 (disambiguation) * 63 (Las Vegas), a shopping mall * ''63'' (album), by Tree63 * ''63'' (mixtape), by Kool A. ...

operated a manual control center at the

Houston Air Route Traffic Control Center Houston Air Route Traffic Control Center (ZHU) (radio communications: Houston Center) is located at George Bush Intercontinental Airport at 16600 JFK Boulevard, Houston, Texas, United States 77032. The Houston ARTCC is one of 22 Air Route Traffic ...

and the USAF added radars to supplement the existing

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

coverage in the Caribbean area. In 1977, responsibility for operating the SADS control center was transferred to the group, which was operating the last BUIC III site in ADC. The previous year the group also assumed responsibility to operate the Tyndall

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ; , CDAAN), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and pr ...

Control Center. The group continued to act as a control center until it was inactivated in 1983 when the Tyndall radar site became part of the

Joint Surveillance System The Joint Surveillance System (JSS) is a joint United States Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration system for the atmospheric air defense of North America. It replaced the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system in 1983. Overvie ...

Lineage

* Constituted as 678th Air Defense Group on 13 February 1970 : Activated on 1 March 1970 : Inactivated on 1 March 1983 : Disbanded on 27 September 1984Department of the Air Force/MPM Letter 575q, 27 September 1984, Subject: Disbandment of Units

Assignments

, 1 March 1970 – 1 March 1983

Components

None

Stations

* Tyndall AFB, Florida, 1 March 1970 – 1 March 1983

Awards

References

Notes

Bibliography

* *
AF Pamphlet 900-2, Unit Decorations, Awards and Campaign Participation Credits, Vol II
Department of the Air Force, Washington, DC, 30 Sep 76

External links

* {{Aerospace Defense Command, state=autocollapse Aerospace Defense Command units Military units and formations established in 1970 0678 Military units and formations in Florida Military units and formations disestablished in 1984