Naval Air Facility El Centro or NAF El Centro is a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

Naval Air Facility located approximately six miles (10 km) northwest of

El Centro El Centro (Spanish for "The Center") is a city and county seat of Imperial County, California, United States. El Centro is the largest city in the Imperial Valley, the east anchor of the Southern California Border Region, and the core urban are ...

, in

Imperial County, California Imperial County is a County (United States), county on the southeast border of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 179,702, making it the least populous county in Southern Californi ...

. NAF El Centro is under the jurisdiction of

Navy Region Southwest Navy Region Southwest is one of eleven current naval regions responsible to Commander, Navy Installations Command for the operation and management of Naval shore installations in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, ...

and serves both as temporary homeport to military units conducting air-to-air and bombing training, and as the winter training home of the

Blue Angels The Blue Angels is a flight demonstration squadron of the United States Navy.

aerobatics display team. Founded in 1946 as Naval Air Station El Centro, the facility had previously been the site of a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

era Marine Corps Air Station. In 1979, the facility was given its current designation as a Naval Air Facility.

History

In 1941 the Civil Aeronautics Administration offered to replace the small airport in

Imperial, California Imperial is a city in Imperial County, California, north of El Centro. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 14,758. It is part of the El Centro metropolitan area. In 2016, Imperial was the fourth fastest-growing city in the sta ...

with a larger complex consisting of two 4,500ft runways. After the outbreak of World War II, the U.S. Navy leased the new airport and an adjacent 749 acres for additional construction. During this time the runways were extended and a third one was added. The expansion of MCAS El Centro was done by Vinson & Pringle and

Del E. Webb Construction Company The Del E. Webb Construction Company was a construction company that was founded in 1928 and developed by Del Webb. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, it became the Del E. Webb Corporation a publicly traded company on the New York ...

out of

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

. MCAS El Centro was commissioned on July 23, 1943. During the war the air station was used as a training base for new squadrons and as a facility for squadrons returning from overseas to reorganize and begin preparing to deploy again. On March 15, 1945 a Marine Corps Aerial Gunnery School was opened. MCAS El Centro was decommissioned on May 1, 1946, the same day it was taken over by the Navy for use as a Naval Air Station. Fleet Air Gunnery Unit was opened. Through the years, Navy El Centro has had several names: Naval Air Facility, Naval Auxiliary Landing Field, Naval Air Station, and the National Parachute Test Range. For the first 35 years, the mission of NAF El Centro was devoted to aeronautical escape system testing, evaluation, and design. In November 1947, the Parachute Experimental Division from

Naval Air Station Lakehurst A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

, New Jersey moved to El Centro. In 1951, the Joint Parachute Facility was established and consisted of the Naval Parachute Unit and the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

(USAF) 6511th Test Group (Parachute). The USAF remained part of El Centro's test organization for the next 27 years.

Current operations

The facility has two operating runways. The east–west runway handles 96 percent of the traffic. It is equipped with a fresnel lens optical landing system (FLOLS) at each approach end, as well as lit aircraft carrier

flight deck The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopters ...

landing areas at both ends, so pilots can simulate carrier landings. Apart from touch-and-go landings and take-offs, aircrews use the many ranges at NAF El Centro to develop their skills. A remote-controlled target area allows

naval aviator Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases. Naval aviation is typically projected to a position nearer the target by way of an aircraft carrier. Carrier-based a ...

s and

naval flight officer A naval flight officer (NFO) is a commissioned officer in the United States Navy or United States Marine Corps who specializes in airborne weapons and sensor systems. NFOs are not pilots (naval aviators), but they may perform many "co-pilot" or ...

s to practice ordnance delivery. The desert range is used for

air-to-ground Air-to-ground weaponry is aircraft ordnance used by combat aircraft to attack ground targets. The weapons include bombs, machine guns, autocannons, air-to-surface missiles, rockets, air-launched cruise missiles and grenade launchers. See also * ...

bombing, rocket firing, strafing, dummy drops and mobile land target training. The target complex uses the Weapons Impact Scoring System that microwaves target images to a range master control building for immediate verification of weapons delivery accuracy. The addition of the Display and Debriefing Subsystem, known as DDS, expanded the role of NAF El Centro to include

air combat ''Air Combat'' is a 1995 combat flight simulator developed and published for the PlayStation by Namco. Players control an aircraft and are tasked with completing a series of missions, with objectives ranging from destroying formations of enemie ...

training by utilizing remote television, acoustical and laser scoring systems. The DDS is linked with the Tactical Air Crew Training System (TACTS) to provide a computerized record of the tactics employed by individual aircrews to employ and to evaluate the effectiveness of each maneuver. The facility is also home to the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Joint Helicopter Force (US) which is part of

Joint Helicopter Command Joint Helicopter Command (JHC) is a tri-service organisation uniting battlefield military helicopters of the British Armed Forces for command and coordination purposes. History Background Over the years, the grouping of all battlefield suppor ...

Air show

NAF El Centro is the winter home of the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, The Blue Angels. NAF El Centro historically kicks off the Blue Angels' season with their first air show.

Demographics

The

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

has designated the Naval Air Facility, under the name El Centro Naval Air Facility, as a separate

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

(CDP) for statistical purposes, covering the residential population. It first appeared as a CDP in the 2020 Census with a population of 280.

2020 census

''Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.''

In popular culture

Much of the movie '' Jarhead'' was filmed around El Centro, and many of the extras from the movie were from NAF El Centro. In the beginning of the 1990 movie ''

Revenge Revenge is committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Francis Bacon described revenge as a kind of "wild justice" that "does... offend the law ndputteth the law out of office." Pr ...

'',

Kevin Costner Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, producer, film director and musician. He has received various accolades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actor ...

plays an

F-14 Tomcat The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic aircraft, supersonic, twinjet, twin-engine, two-seat, twin-tail, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experi ...

pilot stationed at El Centro.

Notes

References

;Books * * ;Websites
Naval Air Facility El Centro
(official site) Retrieved 2022-01-07.

GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved 2022-01-07.

(California State Military Museum) Retrieved 2022-01-07. *

External links

** {{CAMilitary, state=autocollapse El Centro, Naval Air Station Installations of the United States Navy in California Airports in Imperial County, California Buildings and structures in Imperial County, California El Centro metropolitan area Del E. Webb buildings