W. R. Byron Airport is a privately owned, private use

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

Riverside County, California Riverside County is a County (United States), county located in the southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most ...

, United States. It is located four

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...

s (5 mi, 7 km) northwest of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

Blythe, California Blythe is a city in eastern Riverside County, California, United States. It is in the Palo Verde Valley of the Lower Colorado River Valley region, an agricultural area and part of the Colorado Desert along the Colorado River, approximatel ...

, within the city limits.

Facilities

W. R. Byron Airport has one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

designated 18/36 with an

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

surface measuring 2,640 by 660 feet (805 x 201 m).

History

The airfield opened on June 29, 1942. Known as Blythe Field and Gary Field, it began training

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

flying cadets under contract to Morton Air Academy. It was assigned to United States Army Air Forces West Coast Training Center (later Western Flying Training Command) as a primary (level 1) pilot training airfield. It had three 2,100' active hard-surfaced runways and three local auxiliary airfields for emergency and overflow landings. Flying training was performed with

Ryan PT-22 The Ryan PT-22 Recruit, the main military version of the Ryan ST, is a military trainer aircraft used by the United States Army Air Corps during WWII for primary pilot training. Design and development The PT-22's fuselage is a simple monocoque ...

as the primary trainer; it also had several

PT-17 Stearman The Stearman (Boeing) Model 75 is a biplane formerly used as a military trainer aircraft, of which at least 10,626 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Stearman Aircraft became a subsidiary of Boeing in 1934. Widely known ...

s assigned. Known sub-bases and auxiliaries assigned to the field were: * Ripley Auxiliary Field #1 () * Ripley Auxiliary Field #2 () It was inactivated on August 4, 1944 with the drawdown of AAFTC's pilot training program, then declared surplus and turned over to the Army Corps of Engineers on September 30, 1945. It was eventually discharged to the War Assets Administration (WAA), and the facilities of the former airport were reused by

Palo Verde Community College Palo Verde College, formerly Palo Verde Junior College, is a public community college in Blythe, California. Main Campus Palo Verde College is located along the Colorado River in the fertile Palo Verde Valley, west of Phoenix, east of Palm Sp ...

. The college opened at the site on September 15, 1947, and at this point any aviation use of the airfield presumably ended. Palo Verde College opened its doors as a junior college with an initial enrollment of seventeen students. By 1950, enrollment had reached 250. In September 1958, the college moved to East Hobsonway and closed its facilities at the former airport. The site of Gary Field was reused as a private airfield beginning in 1981 as W. R. Byron Airport, and is a privately owned airfield. Today, many buildings remain standing. In particular, the characteristic irregular arrangement of the barracks buildings which remains at the site make the location of Gary Field very much recognizable. One of the large arch-roof hangars was destroyed by a fire on December 26, 2018. Before that, the second large hangar (at the northwest corner of the site) was apparently removed, but its foundation is still clearly recognizable. An interesting sidebar to history puts billionaire

Kirk Kerkorian Kerkor Kerkorian ( hy, Գրիգոր Գրիգորեան; June 6, 1917 – June 15, 2015) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was the president and CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private holding company based in Beverl ...

at Morton Air Academy as a flight instructor during the early

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 ...

period flying throughout the California desert; he made a first career flying charters, and later building hotels like the MGM Grand years later.

References

Other sources

* * Manning, Thomas A. (2005), ''History of Air Education and Training Command, 1942–2002''. Office of History and Research, Headquarters, AETC, Randolph AFB, Texas * Shaw, Frederick J. (2004), ''Locating Air Force Base Sites, History’s Legacy'', Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, Washington DC.
Gary Field
at

Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields is an online database An online database is a database accessible from a local network or the Internet, as opposed to one that is stored locally on an individual computer or its attached storage (such as a CD) ...

External links

Aerial image as of May 2002
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the effort is to prov ...

''
{{authority control 1942 establishments in California Airports in Riverside County, California Blythe, California Airports established in 1942 Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in California Military facilities in the Mojave Desert Military in Riverside County, California USAAF Contract Flying School Airfields World War II airfields in the United States USAAF Western Flying Training Command American Theater of World War II

Facilities

History

See also

References

Other sources

External links