Marine Corps Air Station Tustin (

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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 ...

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United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

air station, located in

Tustin, California Tustin is a city located in Orange County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In 2020, Tustin had a population of 80,276. The city is located next to the county seat, Santa Ana, and does not include the unincorporated community ...

History

The Air Station was established in 1942 by the United States Navy as a lighter-than-air base, officially known as Naval Air Station Santa Ana. The base was designed for

blimp A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of the lifting gas (usually helium, rather than hydr ...

operations in support of the Navy's coastal patrol efforts during

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 ...

. It was commissioned on 1 October 1942 by its commandant, Capt. Howard N. Coulter. As of July 1947, the facility, under command of Capt. Benjamin May, had personnel consisting of 100 officers, 500 enlisted men and 180 civilian employees. NAS Santa Ana was decommissioned in 1949. In 1951, the facility was reactivated as Marine Corps Air Facility Santa Ana to support the

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. It was the country's first air facility developed solely for helicopter operations. It was renamed Marine Corps Air Station Tustin in 1979. During the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, the base was a center for on-going testing of radar installations (including the Sperry TPS-34) which were erected, tested, disassembled and shipped to

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

. It also was a training facility for helicopter pilots. By the early 1990s, MCAS Tustin was a major center for Marine Corps helicopter aviation and radar on the Pacific Coast. Its primary purpose was to provide support services and material for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and for other units utilizing the base. About 4,500 residents once lived on the base, and the base employed nearly 5,000 military personnel and civilians. In addition to providing military support, MCAS Tustin leased to farmers for commercial crop development. For many years, agricultural lands surrounded the facility. However beginning in the 1980s residential and light industrial/manufacturing areas developed adjacent to the station. In 1991 and again in 1993, under the authority of the Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1990, it was announced that MCAS Tustin would be closed. Operational closure of the base occurred in July 1999. However, the north hangar is still used as a storage and repair center for commercial blimps. Of the approximately , some (now known collectively as "

Tustin Legacy Tustin Legacy is a planned community in Tustin, California being developed on the former Marine Corps Air Station Tustin. The project, under construction, will include parks, a commercial retail center and various densities of housing, for a total ...

") have been conveyed to the City of Tustin, private developers and public institutions for a combination of residential, commercial, educational, and public recreational and open-space uses. The remaining will be conveyed to other federal agencies, the City of Tustin and public institutions for the same uses once environmental clean-up operations have been concluded. The site of the base is now the home of the academy of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Much of the former base has become residential housing. The large blimp hangars have been used for location shooting for numerous movies and TV programs, including JAG and

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. In 1993, the blimp hangars were designated a National Civil Engineering Landmark by the

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(ASCE). There have been talks regarding making one of the hangars a military museum. The base was featured in ''Visiting... with

Huell Howser Huell Burnley Howser (October 18, 1945 – January 7, 2013) was an American television personality, actor, producer, writer, singer, and voice artist, best known for hosting, producing, and writing ''California's Gold'' and his human interest sh ...

'' Episode 1509.

Worldwide Aeros Corp Worldwide Aeros Corp is an American manufacturer of airships based in Montebello, California. It was founded in 1993 by the current CEO and Chief Engineer, Igor Pasternak, who was born in Soviet Kazakhstan, raised in Soviet Ukraine, and moved to ...

is, as of 2013, utilizing one of the historic hangars to build a prototype cargo airship under contract from the

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...

and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

. In October, 2013, part of the roof collapsed, damaging the airship prototype.

Future

Plans are in the works to convert of the former base into a regional park, originally scheduled to be opened in 2016. In the summer of 2013, OC Parks was in the process of gathering input from the community in order to determine the features and layout of the forthcoming facilities. Although the preservation of the hangars is one of the greatest concerns raised in surveys taken by OC Parks, the fate of the south hangar is uncertain. The City of Tustin has reportedly met with officials from the

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team ha ...

, proposing the former air base as a potential site for a new stadium for the team, whose lease with the City of Anaheim's

Angel Stadium Angel Stadium of Anaheim is a baseball stadium located in Anaheim, California. Since its opening in 1966, it has served as the home ballpark of the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB), and was also the home stadium to the Los An ...

allowed the team to opt out between 2016 and 2019. In 2016, Orange County and the South Orange County Community College District arranged for a land swap of ten acres to be used to replace the aging Orange County Animal Shelter in nearby

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

. In July 2016, a ground-breaking ceremony was held. File:NAS Santa Ana blimp hangar construction 1942.jpg, Hangar No. 1 at MCAS Tustin under construction, 1942. File:NAS Santa Ana Hangar 1 under construction 1942.jpg, A different view of Hangar No. 1 under construction. File: mcastustin1.jpg, Six

helium Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. ...

-filled blimps stored in one of the two hangars at MCAS Tustin, date unknown. File: 00US Navy blimp at NAS Santa Ana 1943.jpg, A 1943 photo of a Navy 'K' type blimp in front of one of MCAS Tustin's massive blimp hangars. File: 00CH-46A HMM-165 at MCAS Tustin 1966.jpg, A March, 1966 photo of a CH-46A "Sea Knight" helicopter from HMM-165, with one of Tustin's massive blimp hangars in the background. File: CH-53D maintenance at MCAS Tustin.jpg, A

USMC The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through co ...

CH-53D "Sea Stallion" helicopter undergoes maintenance inside one of MCAS Tustin's giant blimp hangars, date unknown. File:US Marine Corps Air Station Tustin badge.png, MCAS Tustin insignia.

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

OC Parks

Base Realignment and Closure Project Management Office

at The California State Military Museum

Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields is an online database detailing information and first hand memories about airports in the United States which are no longer in operation, or are rarely used. The website was started by Paul Freeman in 1999 a ...

Photos of the Air Station at the Tustin Historical Society website

* http://ocparks.com/about/projects/tbh {{authority control Buildings and structures in Orange County, California Transportation buildings and structures in Orange County, California Tustin, California

Tustin Tustin is a city located in Orange County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In 2020, Tustin had a population of 80,276. The city is located next to the county seat, Santa Ana, California, Santa Ana, and does not include the un ...