Warbird Information Exchange

A little 'ROUNDUP!!??!! DUDE being up in beautiful B.C. you should be as familiar as we are with the 'you can hear them growing' Himalayan Blackberry vines, bring a flock of goats-

_________________
Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

You can find some treasures up here in the North too.


Wikipedia will tell you that this field has aviation roots starting around 1911. I believe this hanger was built in the first half of the 20's or so and has seen its fair share of legends probably pass through her. (Charles Lindbergh, Juan Tripp, Boone Guyton, etc.)

Boy I wish we could get the ball rolling on saving this piece of history.

_________________
Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis
Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

There are a couple of huge hangers out at Goodyear, west of Phoenix. It was a Navy base during the Second War, used to fit out aircraft before heading to the Pacific.

In some pre-911 year in the '90's I was out there alone on a Saturday afternoon, the hangars were open, and I checked out every single room and closet in both hangars. There wasn't anything in any of them to tie them to the war.

I wasn't expecting anything, and it wasn't disappointing, but it was all gone. And it was very poignant being on the upper galleries looking down on the hangar floor and imagining it covered with planes painted blue, many of whose wheels were touching American soil (well, concrete) for maybe the last time...

Had a chance to check out an old hangar from an Aux. Field of NAS Corpus Christi.

Still had some artwork on the walls.

Come to think of it, there was a little talk about something called "Agent Orange"

_________________
"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org

I know some rc guys....


It was a fun hike, but disappointing in that we didn't even find any foundations left over. Also note my bare arms while Hal and everyone else brought their jackets or long sleeved shirts. I was scratching all night....

real archeologists eat the bugs before the bugs eat them.

_________________
"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Looks like the Tacoma paper picked up the story about our little project...
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nort ... 20306.html

_________________
"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org

As the world turns:

We're making some progress on the history of KBLI, but it seems to be 1 step forward and 2 steps back... We've been able to come across some interesting info, but have run up against a few (3) obstacles to our plan to do some preservation work on the west side of the field. However we've got a plan to overcome them; it'll just take some time and effort.

First, an aerial photo of the field, taken '42/'43


Note the bomb storage area in center left, that's where we went for the hike in the jungle a few weeks ago.

And a detail of that area, taken from one of the original blueprints


Anyone have an idea what the structures shown along the roads would have been? None of the drawings we have show any detail or dimensions for them.

Also, after studying the print for awhile I've come to the conclusion that the lines between the buildings and the roads must be drain tiles, ie "20' of 8", "21' of 12" and etc.. But what do the numbers after the drain sizes represent? They read; 2+75, 1+22, 2+20, 37+90 and so on...

Second Air Force? Anyone?

I have larger, better quality images on pdf if it helps...

_________________
"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org

Hal,

I wonder if the "extra" numbers could refer to the drain elevations of each tile? I'd like to see the PDF in order to read each caption better.

The building outlines are possibly "igloo" storage vaults. At the Midwest fields there were a number of igloos for small arms ammunition and bombs. The larger building at the bottom of the diagram would likely be the ordnance area administrative/guard/issue structure. I've got photos of the igloos that I can post after I get home from FTW.

Scott

Thanks Scott,
e-mail with the pdf will be on it's way shortly.

_________________
"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org

I spent a LOT of time at the Greater Southwest Airport in the late 70's with the B-36 that's now at Pima. I rode my bike to the place before I could drive. Once I interrupted a rally race around the closed runways. I later drove my first car as fast as it would go down those same concrete strips.

A few years ago I went back to the site. It's a business / light-industrial park, the whole thing. I think I recognized a curving driveway and a curb cut that led to nowhere, but that's all.

These days I often drive past a plot of land that used to be the base for a couple of war-surplus PBY Catalinas used for Great Lakes fishing charters, as well as an F4-U later known as "Race 57". The hangar building is still there, and still in use, though not in any aviation capacity. However, LifeFlight helicopters use the pad at the hospital just south of what was known as Cook Cleland Field in Willoughby, Ohio.

Skydaddy,

There is a short section of the north/south runway and the north runup pad that still exists north of the highway interchange. I think the curbing and driveway that you referred to is the road to the front of the terminal building. Here is a great link to the GSW Airport as it once was:
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/TX/Air ... #greaterSW

Hal, I got the PDF and will try to find my engineering materials when I get home.

Scott

Hal,

I haven't found my engineering data yet. Here are two images that may clarify the igloo storage buildings a little.

This photo is of several standard ammunition storage igloos at the former Hastings Naval Ordnance installation in mid-Nebraska. There are zillions of these small structures at the site:

I'm thinking that the smaller structures on your blueprint might have been these buildings. There were many FUDS studies done on the Midwest airfields in the nineties that saw most of these destroyed.

Here is the layout of the Walker AAF ordnance storage area. There were a few of the igloos as well as wooden and concrete block structures. The Walker ordnance area is probably the best preserved in the Midwest, if I can find the CD I'll post some aerial shots of it:

The layout of the 2AF bomber training stations was less elaborate than yours, probably because of the different missions and location of the fields.

Scott

Thanks Scott,

FUDS study? What the heck is a FUDS study? I can come up with a lot of possibilities, but nothing mentionable here!:lol:

And is there any chance of making a guess at what the buildings were from the size? Were these things a "standard" size or did they vary. I know there are no dimensions listed on the pdf I sent, but the slightly larger version I have has the scale listed. I can check on that if needed.

_________________
"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org