England Air Force Base Radar Site: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:50, 2 October 2018

England Air Force Base Radar Site (1955-1963) - A Cold War U.S. Air Force Radar Station established during the Korean War. Located near Alexandria, Rapides Parish, Louisiana. Initially assigned a Permanent ID of M-125. Closed in 1963.

History

Constructed in 1955. By August 1955 all the towers had been constructed and were awaiting installation of electronic equipment. The site became operational in December 1955 as England Air Force Base Radar Site manned by the 653rd Aircraft Control & Warning (AC&W) Squadron.

Initial equipment included the TPS-1D search radar, MPS-14 and TPS-10D height-finder radars.

Manual System Operation

In the fall of 1954, the 653rd AC&W Squadron moved to England Air Force Base Radar Site, assigned to the 33rd Air Division (Defense) (33rd ADD). Headquartered at Oklahoma City Air Force Station. The 33rd ADD provided command and control over subordinate radar stations from the Oklahoma City Manual Direction Center P-86 located on Oklahoma City Air Force Station.

Closure

Orders to close down the radar site and the gap filler radars were received on 26 April 1963. The England AFB Radar Site and the 653rd AC&W Squadron were deactivated as/of 23 Apr 1963. Operations ceased on 1 May 1963 but a small compound and the FPS-20 search radar was turned over to the FAA and the site later resumed operation as the Alexandria FAA Radar Site.

Alexandria FAA Radar Site

On 1 Jul 1964 the FAA took over the USAF FPS-20 search radar and tower on the former USAF radar site along with a small compound surrounding the tower. On 6 Jun 1965 they had completed the changes necessary to connect the radar to the FAA ARTCC system and they began 24 hour operation with the legacy FPS-20 radar. At some point the FPS-20 was upgraded to a FPS-20A. The FPS-20A was modified in the 1990s with some more modern solid state components. On 4 May 2012 the upgrade to a Common Air-Route Surveillance Radar (CARSR) configuration was complete.

Gap Fillers

England AFS was responsible for the maintenance of three remote unattended gap filler radar sites. The unattended gap filler sites were placed in locations where the main search radar lacked coverage. These sites were equipped with short range FPS-14 or FPS-18 search radars and FST-1 Coordinate Data transmitters that sent digitized radar target data to a SAGE direction center and to the main radar site. Both the radar set and the FST-1 were dual channel to increase site up time. Maintenance teams were dispatched for regularly scheduled maintenance or when fault indicators on the FSW-1 remote monitoring equipment suggested the site had problems. The FSW-1 also allowed remote operation of specific functions such as channel changes for the radar and for the FST-1, it also allowed remote operation of the diesel generators at the gap filler site. The England AFS gap filler radars were located at Delhi, LA, Lake Charles GFA, LA and Weeks Island, LA. One additional gap-filler was planned at Heflin, LA but was never built.

**England AFS Gap Filler Radar Sites** (edit list)
ADC	Location	State	Type	From	To	GPS	Notes
M-125A	Delhi	LA	FPS-18, FST-1	1960-06	1960-12	32.32778, -91.55694	Not visible
M-125C	Weeks Island	LA	FPS-14, FST-1	1960-02	1963-06	29.80954,	Building exists Tower pads only
M-125D	Lake Charles	LA	FPS-18, FST-1	1961-12	1963-06	30.18455, -93.17317	Over built with private home

England AFS Major Equipment List
Search Radar	HF Radar	Data Systems	Comm
TPS-1D FPS-20 FPS-20A FAA CARSR FAA FPS-14 GF FPS-18 GF	MPS-14 TPS-10D	FST-1 GF

Unit Designations
653rd Aircraft Control & Warning (AC&W) Squadron (1953-1963)

653rd Assignments

1 Jan 1951 - Assigned at Stewart AFB, NY, as the 540th AC&W Group
6 Feb 1952 - Inactivated
18 Jun 1953 - Reactivated at Tinker AFB, OK and assigned to the 33rd Air Division
fall of 1954 - Moved to Alexandria AFB, LA
1955 - Base of assignment redesignated England AFB, LA
1 Jan 1960 - Transferred to Oklahoma City, ADS
1 Sep 1961 - Transferred to 4752nd Air Defense Wing
25 Jun 1963 - Transferred to Oklahoma City ADS
1 Aug 1963 - Discontinued.

Current Status

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Location: Former England Air Force Base near Alexandria in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.

Maps & Images

Lat: 31.31442 Long: -92.53069

Multi Maps from ACME
Maps from Bing
Maps from Google
Elevation: 85'

See Also:

Sources:

Cornett, Lloyd H. & Johnson, Mildred W., A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization (1946-1980), Office of History ADC, Peterson AFB, Colorado, 31 Dec 1980, 179 pages, Pdf, page 98.
Winkler, David F., Searching the Skies: the Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program, USAF Hq Air Combat Command, 1997, 192 pages, Pdf, page 118.

Links:

Visited: No

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 == Closure ==
-Orders to close down the radar site and the gap filler radars were received on 26 April 1963. The England AFB Radar Site and the 653rd AC&W Squadron were deactivated as/of 23 Apr 1963. Operations ceased on 1 May 1963 but a small compound and the FPS-20 search radar was turned over to the FAA and the site resumed operation as the Alexandria FAA Radar Site.
+Orders to close down the radar site and the gap filler radars were received on 26 April 1963. The England AFB Radar Site and the 653rd AC&W Squadron were deactivated as/of 23 Apr 1963. Operations ceased on 1 May 1963 but a small compound and the FPS-20 search radar was turned over to the FAA and the site later resumed operation as the Alexandria FAA Radar Site.
 == [[Alexandria FAA Radar Site]] ==