By JOHN GENTRY
Ask someone if they have ever heard of the Red Bluff Air Force Station and you`ll get the deer in the headlights stare. It has been over 30 years since its closing, and now the Red Bluff Air Force Station has dimmed from the memory of many local residents.
A generation has come of age not knowing of its existence, many folks not even aware that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is still operating the long range radar facility a few miles west of the city. A huge antennae rotates unseen — one rotation every 12 seconds, 24 hours a day, every day of the year — under the big dome. Some people have wondered what that strange, four-story "golf ball", adjacent to present-day Ridgeway Park, might be. To explore the history of this marvelous facility and the job done by both the Air Force and the FAA, a fundamental knowledge of radar, its background and its function in the military, is helpful.
Radar is an acronym for radio detection and ranging. The principles of its workings were discovered in the 1920s by the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. It was first used during World War II to detect the presence, and locate the position, of aircraft. The British and Americans developed superior radar, and it is given much of the credit for saving Britain during the German air blitz in 1940-1941. It is an electronic system in which radio waves are bounced off an aircraft producing a return echo of that radio wave, which indicates the position of the aircraft. These returned signals are displayed on a small viewing screen so that the radar operator can "see" an aircraft which may be hundreds of miles away. As the antennae makes another sweep, another wave will reach the aircraft, and when the reflection is returned, the aircraft will have changed position on the scope. The direction of the aircraft is thus plotted by the direction of the echo; the distance from the installation is determined by the time it takes the signal to return. Mathematics is used to determine how far the aircraft, which radar operators call the target, has moved, and so calculate its speed. The whole process of signal and return echo takes only microseconds.
During the 1950s, the U.S. military became concerned that an air strike by the Soviet Union would annihilate the country. To detect such a strike and thwart its success, the U.S. Air Force began a program of building radar installations around the nation. Hundreds of Radar Squadrons were activated in the mid-1950s. There is some conflict as to the date that the 859th Radar Squadron, which was assigned to Red Bluff, was activated. One document reports that the year was 1951, while another says the squadron was activated in September 1955, at Hamilton Air Force Base. Assigned to the 28th Air Division, the squadron was moved to Red Bluff in the spring of 1956. Air Force records show that the radar unit became manually operative, as opposed to the later automatic operation, in August of that year. Similar facilities were positioned so that the radar search areas overlapped. As with several of these facilities, the operation was a joint venture between the Air Force and the FAA. By June 1960, the facility was fully operational with advanced automatic equipment having been added.
After several changes in command assignment, the 859th came under the authority of the 26th Air Division with headquarters in Corvallis, Ore. It was here that the signals received at the Red Bluff station were actually monitored by the Air Force. The chain of command went from Corvallis to the 4th Air Force at Hamilton Air Force Base, and to the Air Defense Command/North American Air Defense Command located in a huge complex carved into Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs.
Major Floyd Yates was transferred to Red Bluff as the base commander in 1968. He would oversee the operation until its deactivation in 1970. In an interview several years ago he recalled that the station he commanded was just one in a web of radars that constantly observed the skies.
"For us to go to Russia, or Russia to come to us, the shortest route is over the North Pole," he said. "We (in Red Bluff) were a back-up. We had one line real far north on the Arctic Circle called the DEW (Distant Early Warning) line. We had what we called NORAD (North American Air Defense), which was a joint defense venture between Canada and the United States. Then we had these other radar sites in case something should come, in case they got this far, we could still detect them, and fighters could get hold of them. The idea is that one atomic bomb just isn`t anything you can tolerate." Yates recalls that there was one obvious weakness in the old style echo radar: the inability to determine the altitude of the target. To overcome this problem, the Air Force gear included two height-finders that would be manually pointed at the target to determine the alti[tude.]
The assignment required only one such device, but as with mtude. (sic) any aspects of the military, and radar in particular, there was always a secondary device available. Two 5,000 kilowatt diesel powered generators were available at the site should the commercial power, which was the primary power source, be interrupted. There were always two radio communications channels available. One was on line at any given time, and would be switched with the other every 24 hours. And if, for some reason, the entire facility were to be completely shut down, it was felt that the other overlapping squadrons would be able to detect an enemy air strike. The anticipated strike from the Soviet Union was deemed to most likely come from the north or west. Consequently, the radar stations became less numerous further inland and south of Red Bluff.
Another predicament for the Air Force was the fact that even with a multitude of radar sites there were still holes in the coverage. "This is long range radar and it goes by line of sight," Yates said. "The Earth has a four-third curvature factor, and in between we had to put in gap fillers: smaller radar sets that we operated remotely from our main site. I had one up at Susanville to fill in the gap. It sent information into us, and then we`d send it on up to division headquarters in Corvallis, Oregon." Yates said he believed that the main radar facility should have been on the mountain, while the supplementary equipment should have been in Red Bluff.
Aside from its small size, life at the Red Bluff Air Force station was similar to military life at any base. "We had a dining hall," Yates added, "and we had a BX, we had a commissary, we had a small dispensary. We had some barracks out there. But over half the people in the squad were married so we had base housing on Acwon drive. We didn`t have a doctor. The Air Force paid a doctor in town: it was Dr. Bill Martin. We had our own personnel people, civil engineers. We had our own MP`s. We had a swimming pool, one of the few small bases that had a pool."
A map of the station shows six barracks, a noncommissioned officers club, gymnasium, officers quarters, and a motor pool. The radar search set, the antennae and related equipment which still resides under the geodesic dome, was always listed as an FAA facility.
Yates affirmed that the FAA personnel actually operated the radar. "This site out here was manned by civilian personnel. When we came to alert, though, they came under my command. So this radar site served two purposes, one for air defense and one for air traffic control. And they (FAA) were mainly concerned with the traffic at Oakland, San Francisco and with Sacramento."
Daily life for the 180 enlisted men and officers was routine. Work went on around the clock by a minimum of 24 personnel at any time. Regular maintenance was performed, reports written, and briefings held. The military crews were expected to be on time and in proper uniform.
Performance was constantly monitored to be sure that operations were satisfactory. The same standards that were applied at larger bases were expected in Red Bluff and everyone was aware that an alert status could be ordered at any time. There was a guardhouse at the gate to the area, but under normal circumstances no guard was stationed there. With so few men in the squadron it was usually not necessary to do so. If a strange vehicle or unauthorized person entered the perimeter, service personnel would immediately investigate. But on alert status the situation changed, and admittance was limited to authorized personnel. Sentries might even be posted around the perimeter at such a time.
To help the operation prepare for any eventuality, mild exercises were held every month. Yates reported that large scale exercises were held on a quarterly basis. "Then once a year they would ground all the civilian airplanes and SAC (the Strategic Air Command) would invade the United States. They beat us a lot of times. We got sharper and sharper and one time we wiped them out.
As technology advanced, the use of ground-based radar became less important. With the advent of flying radar stations, the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), much broader and more effective coverage could be achieved. There was no need to maintain the Red Bluff radar for military purposes, and it was transferred to exclusive use of the FAA.
"When we closed the base down, they took it over completely. It`s all FAA now. It was July, well, 30 June, 1970. They had a big close-down of all the Air Defense bases." Official Air Force records show that the Red Bluff squadron was completely deactivated on Sept. 30, 1970.
Aside from the radome, the operations building, and the gymnasium, which are still standing, the buildings were removed. Concrete slabs are still in evidence where the mess hall, motor pool, guard gate, and a few other buildings once stood. Because of safety concerns, the swimming pool was filled. The majority of the area is now under the ownership of Tehama County, enjoyed by the public as Ridgeway Park, used for picnics and family gatherings; the baseball field has been enlarged and youth baseball games are held there in the summer.
Since the departure of the Air Force, the FAA has operated, maintained, and improved the equipment at the Red Bluff facility. As newer radar gear and communications equipment have been installed, the capabilities of the station have increased. While the Red Bluff location is still one of many used by the FAA, its importance to the burgeoning volume of air traffic is considerable. The ability to "paint" thunderstorms and other weather phenomena are used to warn flyers of adverse conditions. Bob Cross was, for many years, a senior technician in Red Bluff, working with the FAA for nearly three decades. He came to Red Bluff in 1971, and transferred a few years ago. In those years in Red Bluff he saw many changes in technology improve the system and, therefore, aircraft safety.
"It`s a 200-mile range and we`ve got the area blanketed by overlapping radars. One at Klamath Falls, one at Crescent City, Red Bluff, Mt. Tamalpais, Fallon, Battle Mountain, Sacramento, Paso Robles, and on and on. The idea being is they keep them (aircraft) in visual contact, radar contact, continuously while they are overhead. We not only provide Oakland Center (an on-route air traffic control hub) with information on air carriers, (meaning) passenger planes, but (also) military flights, cargo flights, and general aviation aircraft for the guy that gets out here in his little Cessna and he`s putzing around. We send the information from here to Oakland Center and they have the information to utilize to maintain safe skies."
Good design of the original system has prompted the FAA to keep a considerable amount of the equipment that was originally installed. The radome, the structure that houses the antennae, has remained, in essence, unchanged. The original transmitter was designed to put out about 1,500,000 watts of power. Improvements have been in the very critical timing mechanisms of the radar. The antennae sweeps 360 degrees in precisely 12 seconds. Since these sweeps are the benchmarks for determining the speed of the aircraft, the timing must be accurate. New timing devices divide the 360-degree circle into more than 4,000 segments. Clocks, which are themselves constantly calibrated, continually check and adjust the rotation rate. If the timing is not correct to within one-half of a microsecond, alarms sound for technician attention.
"Here (in Red Bluff) we use two different kinds of radar," Cross said. "One is the old echo type where we put out a big blast of energy and we then listen, waiting for it to come back. That`s the old standard radar. Then there is a type that was initiated many years ago called secondary radar or beacon. They`re actually called transponders."
It was believed that the next generation of radar controls would render original radar systems obsolete by this time, but since the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, a decision has been made to retain both a primary and secondary radar system. This means that the oldest of the two systems will be replaced with a new radar system, or at the very least it will be upgraded, and improved to last for many years. Just as the AWACS offered a higher, and therefore better, position for radar transmitters, satellites in geosynchronous orbits are now allowing ever greater accuracy. The Global Positioning Satellite system uses satellites to provide all the information needed on air traffic. In the future the new on-board navigation systems will become available that cut the number of necessary ground-based beacons to perhaps a dozen for the entire planet, or do away with them entirely.
In the fall of 1995 the radar was stopped for several days as some new equipment was installed on the antennae. This also required the replacing of the radome with a slightly larger one. The new radome is made of fiberglass so that it does not interfere with the radar signal as would metal or wood construction. The domes have proved very dependable over the years. The newer electronic equipment is also very dependable and becoming even more so. The only problems reported have been the power outages, which are quickly restored by the back-up generators. Inclement weather has not adversely affected the operation.