Naval Air Station New Iberia, located near New Iberia, Louisiana, was a short-lived training facility of the United States Navy which operated for a mere five years in the 1960s. The naval base at New Iberia was actually designated NAAS, indicating that it was a Naval Auxiliary Air Station.HistoryThe site of NAAS New Iberia had served as a civil airport between 1946 and 1954. In 1954 the Department of Defense selected the airport for development as a naval air station.Due to the runway length requirements of naval jet aircraft, 4,000 acres were purchased by the Federal Government and an 8,002-foot concrete runway, Runway 16/34, was constructed. Commissioned in 1960, Naval Auxiliary Air Station New Iberia was located near U.S. Highway 90 just outside New Iberia and covered an area of 4,347 acres of land and had an elevation of 24 feet.With the opening of NAAS New Iberia, its primary flying unit, Advanced Training Unit-B moved from Naval Air Station Kingsville/South Field, Texas and was redesignated as Training Squadron TWENTY SEVEN (VT-27). Operating Grumman TS-2A Trackers, the squadron conducted advanced multiengine training for Student Naval Aviators destined for carrier-based A-1 Skyraider, S-2 Tracker and E-1 Tracer aircraft, and land-based naval aircraft and seaplanes, primarily those engaged in airborne early warning mission flying the EC-121 Warning Star, and those in the patrol and anti-submarine warfare mission, such as the P-2 Neptune, P5M Marlin, and the new P-3 Orion that began coming on line in the early 1960s.
