A level area near Bainbridge, seven miles (11 km) northwest of the City adjacent to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad was selected by the Air Corps, and the City of Bainbridge and Decatur County purchased 2,070 acres (8.4 km2) for $66,800 and then leased the property to the Army for $1 per annum for a basic flight training base authorizing 89.9 million for its construction.

By 1 September the complement of aircraft had risen to 132 BT-13s and 14 BT-15s.. For a time, Bainbridge also hosted twin-engine advanced training in the AT-10 until other bases reached completion.

The base had deteriorated badly over its six idle years and a major renovation project was required to return it to acceptable standards.

Beginning with Class 54-ABC in the spring of 1953, the first 25 hours of flight instruction was given in Piper Super Cubs (PA-18) with 125 hp (93 kW) engines.

This was examined as a means of reducing the cost of discovering which students would wash out of the program due to lack of flying ability.

At this time, in addition to U.S. Air Force personnel (which consisted of aspiring officers as well as Aviation Cadets), personnel from the NATO countries of France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway were also entered into the USAF flight-training program, and trained alongside their USAF counterparts.

Bainbridge Air Base expanded rapidly and during the height of the Korean War had six classes of 140 students in training at one time.

Besides USAF students, flight cadets from Italy, Portugal, Venezuela, West Germany, Japan, France and newly independent South Vietnam were trained.

The base received Cessna T-37 Tweet jet trainers starting in December 1959 as part of "Project All-Jet" in attempt to determine effectiveness of primary flight training in one type of aircraft.