MAG-31 Marine Aircraft Group 31 F/A-18 Hornet Triangle Patch

The jet climbing out of the crossed runways on this patch is an F/A-18 Hornet, twin tails and all, lighting its afterburner on the way up. That is the airplane Marine Aircraft Group 31 flew out of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, for most of four decades. MAG-31 is a fighter-attack group of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, and it has been based at Beaufort, the air station known as Fightertown East, since 1 November 1961. The group was first activated on 1 February 1943 at Cherry Point, North Carolina. The triangle carries MARINE AIRCRAFT GROUP-31 across the base, so there is no question whose patch it is.

The Hornet came to Beaufort in the 1980s, when VMFA-115 traded its F-4 Phantom IIs for F/A-18A Hornets in 1985. Over the years the group's Hornet squadrons have included the VMFA-115 Silver Eagles, VMFA-122 Crusaders, later the Werewolves, VMFA-251 Thunderbolts, VMFA-312 Checkerboards and VMFA(AW)-533 Hawks, flying the F/A-18A, C and two-seat D. Before Beaufort, the group fought World War II from Samoa to Okinawa, coming ashore at Yontan Airfield on 7 April 1945, and in October 1945 it moved to Yokosuka and became the first Marine land-based air group to operate from the Japanese home islands. Its squadrons flew in Desert Storm, Operation Deny Flight, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. The Hornet era is now giving way to the F-35 Lightning II, with VMFAT-501 training F-35 pilots at Beaufort and VMFA-533 receiving its first F-35B on 11 October 2024.

The patch is a triangle, 3.75 inches wide by 4 inches tall, in navy blue twill with a white merrowed edge. Two black runways cross in an X with white centerline dashes, and a white contrail curves up from where they meet. At the end of it a gray Hornet, seen from above, climbs with a red and orange afterburner flame and a light blue canopy. MARINE AIRCRAFT GROUP-31 runs along the bottom in white block letters. It has a hook backing, hook side only, for a loop panel on a flight jacket, helmet bag or plate carrier.

For the Marines who served in it, MAG-31 meant the Hornet years at Fightertown East: long days on the flight line, launches and recoveries, detachments and carrier deployments, and squadrons that took pride in their jets. Pilots got the attention, but the group ran on the maintainers, ordnance crews, plane captains and logistics Marines who kept the Hornets flying. Many of them served more than one tour on that same flight line. The Hornet has been the group's airplane for most of its time in South Carolina, and this patch puts it front and center.

It belongs on a flight jacket or helmet bag, or in a shadow box with your squadron patches, the group's MAG-31 palmetto patch and a photo of the jet you worked on. It also makes a good gift for a Hornet pilot or maintainer who spent his years at Beaufort. At 4 inches tall it reads clean from across a room. A Hornet, two runways and the group's name.