Official VT-10 Wildcats America's 250th Anniversary Patch

Official VT-10 Wildcats America's 250th Anniversary commemorative patch.

250 years of America. 65 years of Wildcats. NFOs to the fleet.

Training Squadron 10 (VT-10), the "Wildcats," is the U.S. Navy's primary and intermediate Naval Flight Officer (NFO) training squadron, based at NAS Pensacola, Florida under Training Air Wing SIX (TW-6). VT-10 was established in 1960 as the Basic Naval Aviation Officers (BNAO) School — initially a ground-only operation — and became an active flying training squadron in February 1962 when it was assigned UC-45J "Navigators" and T-2A "Buckeyes." The school was officially commissioned as VT-10 in 1968, the same year Naval Aviation Observers were redesignated as Naval Flight Officers, and by November 1970 the Wildcats had trained over 6,000 student NFOs. The squadron has flown a who's-who of training aircraft over the decades — the T-2 Buckeye, T-39 Sabreliner, TF-9J Cougar, T-34C Turbo Mentor, and T-47A — and in 2002 received its first T-6A Texan II, retiring its last T-34 in June 2005. The T-6A is the first military aircraft every Student Naval Flight Officer learns to operate, with full dual controls, a pressurized cockpit with onboard oxygen generation, and digital color avionics. In 2009 VT-10 returned to an all-Navy/Marine Corps squadron after the Air Force stood up its own Combat Systems Officer School at NAS Pensacola, and in 2010 it incorporated VT-4 "Cadre" status to facilitate the new Undergraduate Military Flight Officer (UMFO) syllabus. This patch marks America's 250th birthday with the squadron that's been making fleet NFOs for 65 of those years.

Perfect For: VT-10 Wildcats Student Naval Flight Officers and instructor pilots, Training Air Wing SIX personnel, NAS Pensacola Sailors and Marines, T-6A Texan II maintainers, NFO community alumni, America 250 commemorative patch collectors, and Naval Air Training Command historians.

Wildcats — NFOs to the fleet, America's 250th, 1960 forward.