Steve Weatherly: Your information below is somewhat incomplete. The old concrete AN/FPS-24 radar tower at Oakdale, PA is still in service (with a more-modern FAA radar and 55' radome). The one at Port Austin AFS was used with a different radar and 55' radome until 1988, but is bare now. The one at Point Arena AFS was used with a different radar and 55' radome until the mid 1990s, but is bare now. The steel tower at Buck Harbor AFS was used with a different radar and 55' radome until the mid 1990s, but has since been demolished. And several concrete AN/FPS-35 radar towers still host FAA radars today, namely Boron AFS, Benton AFS, and Fallon AFS, all with 55' radomes.

Also, according to vets, the AN/FPS-27 (or at least some of its equipment) at San Pedro Hill AFS was also sent to Mt. Hebo AFS. This was in addition to the radar set from Miles City AFS.

FPS-24 Dual Use Radar Towers

Malmstrom had a FPS-24 search radar. Any stories or documents on the follow-on use of the steel frame FPS-24 tower for a FPS-65 with a rigid radome, or the eventual demolition of the FPS-24 tower? There was no radome installed for the FPS-24. I think the FPS-65 radome at Malmstrom was a CW-396A.

At Mt Hebo AFS the third FPS-24 radome (CW-798) was destroyed in 68. The FPS-24 radar set was then removed. The steel frame 24 tower was then used for a FPS-27 search radar (moved to Hebo from Miles City) that operated until closure in 79. I think the FPS-27 rigid radome at Hebo was a CW-396A. The 24 tower was demolished by 84 along with the rest of the station. However, the view from the top of Mt Hebo remains spectacular. A meadow covers most of the former area of station.

Only the steel frame FPS-24 tower at Cottonwood remains, but the CW-650 radome has been removed. The other three steel frame 24 towers are now gone. Only the towers at Malmstrom and Hebo were used after the FPS-24 equipment was shut down and then other search radar sets were installed and operated. The seven concrete FPS-24 towers still exist, but are not used for their intended purpose. None of the concrete FPS-24 towers had a radome.

The prototype 24 tower at Eufaula is also gone. This steel frame, open-air tower was a very different design from that used at the 11 sites with production versions of the FPS-24.

Note that the basic radar tower building design for the FPS-24 and 35 was the same. All these towers were enclosed and the external dimensions were about 64’ by 64’, and 85 ‘ tall. There were 5 interior concrete floors and a steel mesh mezzanine above the fifth floor in these radar towers. The major tower design difference was the use of either a steel frame or a concrete structure. The equipment layouts in these radar towers was suited to just the FPS-24 or 35. Only the FPS-35 tower at Baker had a radome (CW-620). If their was a radome for a FPS-24 or 35, then the tower was surrounded by a stand alone, open-air, steel Radome Support Structure (RSS). The radome was installed on the RSS and not on the roof of the radar tower.

Steve
Radar Maintenance +
Mt Hebo AFS 65-67

23 years ago today, 24 August 1992, Hurricane 'Andrew' wrecked havoc in southern Florida. One of the casualties was the joint-use ARSR-1 radar at Richmond AFS (Z-210/J-06). This Category-5 hurricane -- and most likely a tornado spawned by the hurricane -- totally destroyed both the radar and its tower. Luckily, no one at the site was injured. However, this left the region without long-range radar cover for air defense and for air-traffic control until a new ARSR-4 radar at nearby Tamiami (J-06A) could be installed and brought on line a year or two later.

The environmental assessment of Pave Paws at Cape Cod AFS, MA is available at: http://www.peterson.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090318-067.pdf

This appears to be in response to efforts in the late 1990's to close the Pave Paws operation. At almost 300 pages there is a lot of detail!

Ruth,
We certainly would like to get these photos, either as scans or the actual photos themselves. Many thanks for thinking of us. You can email scans to this email (hq@afrmaonline.org) or mail photos to:

AFRMA, Inc.
9976 Stoudertown Rd.
Baltimore, OH 43105

Gene

My father was stationed on Texas Tower 3 Nantucket Shoals. In going through his papers, I found a handful of photos from the tower. Would you be interested in jpgs of these for your site?

To whoever reported as an error:
"can not find the 764th radar in St. Albans Vt."

1. Click on "RADAR SITES" in the Contents, you'll get a search page
2. Type any of the following:
a. 764 in the Unit field
b. Saint Albans (or just Albans) in the Location field
c. VT in the State field
3. Then click on Search

You'll get a summary of the hits, showing a summary of the information we have on the site(s).

Note that you have to use the full word (Saint, not St. or Mountain not Mtn., etc. if applicable)

Gene