Cartwright Air Station (1953-1968) - A Cold War U.S. Air Force Radar Station established during the Korean War. Located near Cartwright, Labrador. Assigned a Permanent ID of N-27. Closed in 1968.
Cartwright Air Station, June 1958.
History
Established and constructed in 1951-1953 by contractors. Became operational in 1953 as Cartwright Air Station manned by the 922nd Aircraft Control & Warning (AC&W) Squadron (USAF). This site functioned for most of its life as a ground controlled intercept (GCI) site that identified aircraft entering their coverage and was prepared to guide armed interceptor aircraft to those it could not identify.
Initial equipment included the FPS-3 search radar and a TPS-502 height-finder radars. By 1968 the radars had been updated to a FPS-93A search radar and two height finders, an FPS-6B and an FPS-90. The 922nd also operated three gap filler radar sites as manned detachments complete with operations personnel and a commanding officer between 1957 and 1961.
Closure
Cartwright Air Station and the 922 AC&W Squadron were deactivated on 18 June 1968 and the radar site was turned over to the RCAF who closed it a short time later.
Gap Fillers
Cartwright Air Station was responsible for the operation and maintenance of three manned remote gap filler radar sites. These gap filler sites were placed in locations where the main search radar lacked coverage and they were manned by USAF maintenance and operations crews headed by a commanding officer and operated as a detachment of the 922 AC&W Squadron.
Manned Gap Filler Detachment Typical Manpower
Number
Positions
Notes
1
Commander
Captain
1
First Sergeant
1
Medic
4
Radio Repairmen
2
Radar Repairmen
FPS-14, FST-1
4
Radar Operators
FPS-14
2
Cooks
1
Motor Pool Mechanic
3
Diesel Mechanics
Contract Civilians
1
Canadian Bell Telephone
Tech Rep
1
Civil Engineer
Contract
21
Total
On-site generators furnished electrical power and were usually operated by local or contract civilians. The sites were all equipped with short range FPS-14 search radars and FST-1 Coordinate Data transmitters that could send digitized radar target data to the main radar site but manual operations continued even after the arrival of OA-947 remote displays. Both the FPS-14 radar set and the FST-1 were dual channel to increase site up time.
The Cartwright Air Station gap filler radars were located at Cut Throat, Spotted Island and Fox Harbor, all in Labrador.
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 104.
