Fort Lawton Air Force Station
Fort Lawton Air Force Station (1961-1963) - A Cold War Air Force Radar Station first established in 1961 in Seattle, Washington. Relocated from McChord Air Force Base in 1961. Named Fort Lawton Air Force Station after the location. Initially assigned a Permanent ID of RP-1 and later a Sage ID of Z-1. Abandoned in 1963.
History of Fort Lawton Air Force Station
Established in 1960 as Fort Lawton Air Force Station manned by the 635th AC&W Squadron. The site was repositioned from it's location on McChord Air Force Base to Fort Lawton in June 1961 as a joint FAA/USAF operation. Initial equipment included the FAA ARSR-1C search radar and two USAF FPS-6A height finder radars. A U.S. Army NIKE Missile Master site was co-located with the USAF site and two U.S. Army FPS-6 height finder radars were placed to support that operation.
The transition of the manual GCI system to the automated SAGE system began with the installation of the FST-2 coordinate data transmitter and search radar upgrades. The FST-2 equipment digitized the radar returns and transmitted the digital returns to the SAGE direction center. Under the SAGE System, interceptor aircraft were directed to their targets by the direction center computers and controllers, greatly reducing the need for local controllers and equipment at every radar station.
The FST-2 was a very large digital system using vacuum tube technology. Over 6900 vacuum tubes were used in each FST-2 requiring 21 air-conditioned cabinets, 40 tons of air conditioning, 43.5 kva of prime power, and usually a large new addition to the operations building. The FST-2B modification added two more cabinets but with newer solid-state (transistor) technology to process coded responses from aircraft transponders.
The site began operation as a SAGE site on 11 Jun 1961 initially feeding the direction center DC-12 at McChord Air Force Base.
Fort Lawton AFS was responsible for the maintenance of one remote unattended gap filler radar sites. The gap filler sites were place in locations where the main search radar lacked coverage. These sites sent digitized radar target data directly to a direction center. Maintenance teams were dispatched from Fort Lawton AFS for regularly scheduled maintenance or when fault indicators suggested the site had problems. The Fort Lawton AFS gap filler site was located at Chehalis but little is known about it's equipment or operation.
Fort Lawton AFS was deactivated March 1963 and the 635th Radar Squadron moved to Dauphin Island Air Force Station.
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Current Status
Operating as an unattended FAA radar site data tied to the JSS system.
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Location: Seattle, Washington. Maps & Images Lat: 47.6575 Long: -122.41306 |
See Also:
Sources:
- 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.
- 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.
Links:
- Lawton+AFS%2C+WA&squadron=&country= Radomes - Fort Lawton Air Force Station
- Wikipedia - Fort Lawton Air Force Station
Visited: 20 May 2014