Santa Rosa Island Air Force Station (ADC ID: RP-15, NORAD ID: Z-15) is a closed

United States 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 ...

General Surveillance Radar station. It is located south-southwest of

Lompoc, California Lompoc ( ; Chumash: ''Lum Poc'') is a city in Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast, Lompoc has a population of 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called ...

. It was closed in 1968 by the Air Force, and turned over to the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

(FAA). Today the site is part of the

Joint Surveillance System The Joint Surveillance System (JSS) is a joint United States Air Force and Federal Aviation Administration system for the atmospheric air defense of North America. It replaced the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system in 1983. Overvie ...

(JSS), designated by

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...

Western Air Defense Sector The Western Air Defense Sector (WADS) is a unit of the Washington Air National Guard located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington. As a state militia unit, the Western Air Defense Sector is not in the normal United States Air Force c ...

(WADS) Ground Equipment Facility G-35. It is also partially used by

Air Force Space Command The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

Vandenberg AFB Vandenberg Space Force Base , previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from th ...

as a telemetry receiving station.

History

Lompoc Air Force Station was established to replace

Santa Rosa Island AFS Santa Rosa Island Air Force Station ( ADC ID: P-15) is a closed United States Air Force General Surveillance Radar station. It is located southwest of the Santa Rosa Island dock, California. It was closed in 1963. History Santa Rosa Island ...

due to the high cost of operating the offshore station. It was given the designation "RP-15" upon its activation on 1 April 1963. Actual construction of the Lompoc AFS began on 1 November 1961 with an expected completion date of 1 September 1962, and an Operational date of 1 July 1963. This new station was planned to be a Long Range Radar Site with a GATR facility. It was programmed to be a split site with the headquarters of the 669th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron and dormitories located on Oak Mountain, about 18 miles south of

. The site was activated on 23 June 1962 during the construction period, and other squadron personnel were assigned during the months prior to its formal establishment. Rain damage and other construction problems slowed construction and final acceptance of the site was made in January 1963, and initially the station functioned as a Ground-Control Intercept (GCI) and warning station. As a GCI station, the squadron's role was to guide interceptor aircraft toward unidentified intruders picked up on the unit's radar scopes. In the early part of 1963, Lompoc AFS was given the added responsibility of having a limited GCI capability in the DMCC room. In addition, the Operational date was moved ahead 3 months to 1 April 1963. Through great teamwork and long hours of duty by members of Western GEEIA, Western Electric, Burroughs and squadron personnel, equipment was installed, aligned and tested and this squadron proudly met its operational date of 1 April 1963. Upon its activation, Lompoc AFS joined

Semi Automatic Ground Environment The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of large computers and associated networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area. S ...

(SAGE) system, feeding data to DC-17 at

Norton AFB Norton Air Force Base (1942–1994) was a United States Air Force facility east of downtown San Bernardino in San Bernardino County, California. Overview For the majority of its operational lifetime, Norton was a logistics depot and heavy-li ...

, California. With the move of the attending 669th AC&W Squadron from Santa Rosa AFS, the squadron was re-designated as the

669th Radar Squadron The 669th Radar Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 27th Air Division, Aerospace Defense Command, stationed at Lompoc Air Force Station, California. It was discontinued on 18 June 1968. The unit was ...

(SAGE). Lompoc's radars provided a complete circle of coverage several hundred miles in radius. Lompoc AFS initially hosted an

AN/FPS-67 The AN/FPS-20 was a widely used L band early warning and ground-controlled interception radar system employed by the United States Air Force Air Defense Command, the NORAD Pinetree Line in Canada, the USAF CONAD in the continental United States, a ...

search radar and an

AN/FPS-6 The AN/FPS-6 Radar was a long-range height finding radar used by the United States Air Force's Air Defense Command. The AN/FPS-6 radar was introduced into service in the late 1950s and served as the principal height-finder radar for the United Sta ...

A height-finder radar. The Ground Air Transmitting Receiving (GATR) Site (R-22) for communications was located at , approximately 1 mile South from the main site. Normally the GATR site was connected by a pair of buried telephone cables, with a backup connection of dual telephone cables overhead. The Coordinate Data Transmitting Set (CDTS) (AN/FST-2) at the main site converted each radar return into a digital word which was transmitted by the GATR via microwave to the Control Center. The radar squadron provided information 24/7 the SAGE Direction Center where it was analyzed to determine range, direction altitude speed and whether or not aircraft were friendly or hostile. Lompoc AFS was re-designated as NORAD ID Z-15 on 31 July 1963. A second AN/FPS-6 was added in 1964. The 669th was inactivated in June 1968 due to budget reductions and the draw down of the ADC aircraft radar squadrons. However, the Lompoc GATR site (R-22) has been retained, and is now site # G-35. The site also is used as a telemetry site for the Western Test Range at Vandenberg AFB.

References

* A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization 1946 - 1980, by Lloyd H. Cornett and Mildred W. Johnson, Office of History, Aerospace Defense Center, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado * Winkler, David F. (1997), Searching the skies: the legacy of the United States Cold War defense radar program. Prepared for United States Air Force Headquarters Air Combat Command.
Information for Lompoc AFS, CA
{{Aerospace Defense Command, state=collapsed Installations of the United States Air Force in California Semi-Automatic Ground Environment sites Aerospace Defense Command military installations 1963 establishments in California 1968 disestablishments in California Military installations established in 1963 Military installations closed in 1968

History

See also

References