|
|
| *Travel Tips>>>Phoenix Travel Tips |
What are/were the big triangles northwest of Phoenix, AZ? |
Travel Info Along highway 60 north and west of Phoenix, there are at least four huge triangles in the Earth. Three point west and one points north. What the story behind these? Here's the one nearest the city: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=33.706394,... Travel Tips The triangle shape in the map image that you linked to is an old World War II auxiliary air field. Specifically, it is (or was) Luke Auxiliary (Aux) field Number 3 which was constructed during the war and deactived shortly afterwards. There are several hundred like it in Arizona. During World War II, Arizona became the top state in the country for flight training because of the clear weather and (at the time) relatively sparse population. Major training air fields were located around Phoenix (Luke, Williams, Thunderbird, Falcon), Tucson (Davis-Monthan, Marana, Ryan), Kingman (Kingman AAF), Douglas and Yuma (Yuma AAF, Datelan). Luke, Davis-Monthan and Yuma are still active military bases today while the others have been abandoned or turned into local civilian air fields. Because they had hundreds of new pilots practicing at each base, they needed multiple runways to practice take-offs, landings, etc. As a result, each of the major air bases had numerous smaller 'auxiliary' air fields located in the area where the pilots would go with their instructors during the day to practice. Unlike the major airfields, these auxiliary air fields were very basic and often had no permanent buildings or hangers - just runways and maybe a small tower. The smaller ones were a single long strip, but most had multiple runways combined in either a triangle or square shape. They were typically named after their parent air field (ie: Williams Aux 1, Williams Aux 2, etc). After the war, most of the auxiliary fields were abandoned (although a few are still used today). The one in your map was Luke Aux 3 (Luke Army Air Field, Auxiliary field number 3) and was used by cadets training to be fighter pilots at Luke. Although Luke is still an active military base, this particular auxiliary field was deactivated in 1946. Luke Aux 2 was located north of US60 a few miles to the northwest of Aux 3 - this is probably one of the other ones that you saw. Luke had a total of six auxiliary fields in the Phoenix area (I think only Luke Aux 1 near Whittman is still active). But even aside from the Luke ones, there were plenty of other auxiliary fields around the Phoenix area supporting Williams AAF and the flight schools at Thunderbird and Falcon field. Source(s): Arizona resident and historian. Have researched and written about Arizona during World War Two. This website has good information (including photos) of the WWII auxiliary fields in the Phoenix area: http://members.tripod.com/airfields_free... For more information about World War II historic sites in Arizona (including old air fields), see the following books: "Arizona Goes to War: The Home Front and Front Lines during WWII", various authors, edited by Brad Melton and Dean Smith. The Appendix at the end includes a guide to the state's major WWII historic sites. "World War II Sites in the United States: A Tour Guide & Directory" by Richard Osborne. Directory of WWII sites across the entire country. Other Travel Tips I think I found 2 of the other 3 you didn't link to: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=33.706394,... http://maps.google.com/maps?q=33.706394,... Seems that those 2 are part of or near airports -- I'm thinking that it's some sort of visual notification for UFOs -- er, I mean airplanes. Creepy, tho! Check out (or ask around) at http://www.googlesightseeing.com/... and see if there's anything there about them. |
| Tags |
| Miami New Orleans New York City Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix Portland Sacramento San Antonio San Diego San Francisco |
Travel Info Categories--Copyright/IP Policy--Contact Webmaster |