Warbird Information Exchange

Greetings
I am seeking info on Who Love Field was named after Was it a pilot of WW2 ? or before ?
I know that during WW2 that it was used in some limited training and a lay over field on cross country flights.
Any and all info would greatly appericated
Thank you

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Always Keep Em Flying !

Glen

Lookie Capt Jim! Wham! Wham! ...............................Termights

He was one of the first pilots in the US Army. A member of the 1st Aero Squadron formed down in Texas City, Texas shortly before Pershing went after Pancho Villa on the Mexican Border.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

From the mouth of the "experts".

http://www.dallas-lovefield.com/lovenot ... story.html

Thanks
I knew that I would find the Answer on this fourm. I is full of wisdom as well wiseguys

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Always Keep Em Flying !

Glen

Lookie Capt Jim! Wham! Wham! ...............................Termights

I was born in Dallas and lived about a half mile from Love Field. I knew he was an early aviator, but not the full story. It was and probably still is a great airport, sort of like Hobby in Houston. I wish the greedheads and anti general aviation nerds, like Michael Dell, could have left the original in- town airport in Austin open and it could have been a bit like Love or Hobby. Same for Stapleton Airport in Denver. DIA has about as much character as tofu.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

While i agree that both the Mueller and Stapleton closeures were in many ways shameful, the closure of Stapleton goes much deeper. While Northwest and Continental wanted to use the airport for continued aviation use, the planning board was swayed by both United and the surrounding residents that Stapleton should not remain in service after the new airport was opened. The reason was primarily objections by the residents about noise (they wanted to be completely done with it), but a lot of it was that United had a pretty persuasive argument that it should be an all-or-nothing move because of the issues that had been encountered with other moves in the past where airlines claimed they'd move but never did. As such and because neither Northwest nor Continental wanted to sign any sort of contract that garunteed they'd never provide passenger service via Stapleton again, the board chose to close and remove Stapleton. Then again, you also have Lowry AFB located nearby that was fully redeveloped as well for the same reason (noise complaints by neighbors).

I am thankful that in contrast to the Amon Carter Field fiasco where an amazing piece of bas-relief was utterly destroyed and almost all evidence of the airport removed, at Stapleton, they saved the tower cab (it's now the tower at Front Range) and saved the beautiful tile mosaic (it's now at the Wings Over the Rockies Museum, ironically located in the only 2 remaining hangars at Lowry). The other issue with Austin is that Mueller was (and is) landlocked. There was no room for expansion and while it's inexcusable to close both it and Executive and leave no viable General Aviation airport in the city, the decision to close Mueller had basis. Thankfully, there is a move afoot to bring another public-use General Aviation-only airport to Austin in the next 5-10 years, so hopefully it'll go through.

And here I thought it was named after the cuties that give me the peanuts on Herb's airline...

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Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

CAP, as for Mueller being landlocked, that is not really true. If the govt and the money people wanted to expand the airport they could have. There is land to the east and the north, probably even south, that could be bought. There's nothing there that money and will could not have extended a runway by 5000 feet. More important, the runways there were used by the airlines then and would still be just fine for Southwest and its 727 fleet, as well as the trend to reigeonal jets. And it was great for corporate planes and general aviation. The city went on a campaign to close the airport and finally convinced voters.
As for the new airport, it may be nice and come to pass, but it is not in Austin.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Here's the problem though Bill, those purchases would have required demolition of buildings and would have faced a major fight that the city didn't want, especially with Bergstrom AFB just sitting there, ready to be taken over with ready made runways for airline operations. While Mueller would have been great for Southwest, and the occasional commuter operation, it wasn't ideal as an economically viable airport in such a setup. There had been too much maintenance deferred over the years and too much airport for it to just be a GA/Corporate airport with limited commercial service. In my opinion, what should have been done is keep the East complex with either runway 13L/31R or 17/35 as the runway and the rest redeveloped/repurposed as the GA/Executive airport of Austin, but as a whole, Mueller was just too big to be feasible with a 75% reduction in traffic if you kept all 3 runways and the ramps as is. Austin (the people and the city council) were unwilling to spend that kind of money to effectively rebuild the airport in a new configuration, so we get the new Robert Mueller Municipal Airport that actually isn't an airport.