products. during our time in san antonio, the cities tour visited historic sites. up next, we will take you to randolph air force base. >> when a fellow learns to fly with the army air corps, he does not learn it all in a day, week or even a month. the gateway is a big schooling ground in san antonio texas, the primary training point for airline pilots. >> we are here at randolph air force base, where airpower begins. one of the great iconic buildings in air force history.

from here, you can see the entirety of the air force base, the circular design. it is a beautiful place. it is a functional base. it was built in time to help the air force build their numbers so they would have a winning air force by 1942-1934, and they build it to be the showplace of the air force and it became known as west point of the air, with engineers and artillery specialists in the army, this is where you learned the craft of flying and supporting flying operations. so it started here and have come back here. >> a lot of people mention the base as being important to san antonio. >> it is. >> why is it important? >> it has always been a generator for technology and innovation. some of the best of american society come here. it is one of the most diverse bases in the air force.

if you want diversity of thought, diversity of backgrounds, religions, the air force is the place to go. randolph might be more emblematic of that than any other base because we all learn to fight, flight and win here. almost everyone who comes through randol[h one time or another. >> the nearby field is for advanced students, combining to form the nerve center of the training program. expanding operations calls for the schooling of 30,000 operational pilots each year. >> san antonio had always been looking for something. as the air force expanded, they realized the need for a larger base so in 1926 the air corps act gave me a lot of money to the federal government and army air force to build new bases. so the selection of land here north of san antonio brought

together the fruition of all three bases together, training the number of pilots that would be necessary as we moved between the war period in the 20's and 30's. so randolph became that iconic visual for the air force. as you come through at harmon drive, you see the taj mahal, it is an impressive thing. for young people coming to the air force, that is the first sight of this impressive tall building, it give them a sense of pride in what they were about to do and in the country. randolph was reflecting the pride of our nation at the time. (music) >> so in those early films, films from early world war ii, it was almost a recruitment tool. the army would use it at different bases, the air corps would use it here at randolph to try to highlight and say it,

if you are thinking about joining, let's join the air service and the air corps. the movie was the thing you would go to. every saturday, the kids would go and they would see the randolph, the west point of the air, they would see the training. even then, remember flying was new, so the idea of getting in an aircraft and leaving the bounds of the earth was probably something that every young person imagined they could do. for folks especially going into world war ii, we turned out a lot of pilots or service. >> when you look from this perspective, you see the layout of the base. so clark, who laid out the base, was working in the motor pool down at kelly filled. and the general had been appointed to take care of the flying training here at

randolph and get the base layout. so clark designed the base, he was an architect. and now he was a flying trainer and a gunner instructor. he decided he would layout the base so there were three flying ramps, or strips. in the middle would be a concentric area where centered in the middle in a circular design around the three sides of the airstrips, it was easy access. so from any point, you could cut through the circle, the middle circle and get to another part of the base, rather than walking around. it is a very neat design. he wanted to create an air city. that is what randolph is today. there is always flying training going on here at randolph. there are t-38-s, t-1's the.

they train training instructors. those are already air force pilots coming to learn how to train other pilots. it is one thing to be able to fly an airplane, it is another thing to teach somebody else how to fly. that is what they do here at randolph. >> we are in front of the old hospital on randolph. it is part of the school of aviation of medicine complex that came from brooks to randolph when it opened. and during the missions, to study the physiology of a flight. through world war ii, they developed all types of things like the g-suit that kept the pilots conscious.

after the war, it became the focus of space training. before nasa, the air force was in charge of space, the space aspect of technology and investigative research. and space became more and more the international kind of proving grounds. randolph became less and less prominent and much of the space training went back to brooks, which became the human systems command. but as i speak, that technology has come full circle. the technology that made randolph possible, the aviation technology excluding in the 20's and 30's, now we have a space force and we see that coming. and who knows where the headquarters will be, but a lot of it will have started here at randolph. and we will hand it baton to the space force. in fact, we already have. and as we have learned from just studying the space, you never know where that will lead.

to new technologies, maybe a new base, or a base we can visit in 90 years and see what their impact was.

>> welcome. of course i am joe mccartin in case anybody has forgotten. today, we're going to be talking about a period from 1968 to 1988 that i call "turnabout" years. i come up with the title