Naval Air Station Rockaway adjoined

Fort Tilden Fort Tilden, also known as Fort Tilden Historic District, is a former United States Army installation on the coast in the New York City borough of Queens. Fort Tilden now forms part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, and is administered ...

on the western portion of the

Rockaway Peninsula The Rockaway Peninsula, commonly referred to as The Rockaways or Rockaway, is a peninsula at the southern edge of the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, New York. Relatively isolated from Manhattan and other more urban parts of the ...

in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle A ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. It was established on transferred municipal property in 1917 during American involvement in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The station was the departure point for the first

transatlantic flight A transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, Central America, or South America, or ''vice versa''. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing air ...

in 1919, executed by the crew of the

NC-4 The NC-4 was a Curtiss NC flying boat that was the first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, albeit not non-stop. The NC designation was derived from the collaborative efforts of the Navy (N) and Curtiss (C). The NC series flying boats w ...

. On November 27, 1918, the NC-1 took off from the station with 51 people aboard, establishing a new world record for persons carried in flight."The First Flight Across the Atlantic"

Naval Historical Center The Naval History and Heritage Command, formerly the Naval Historical Center, is an Echelon II command responsible for the preservation, analysis, and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage located at the historic Washington Navy Yard. ...

. Accessed July 11, 2007. "Soon the NC-l would establish a record by carrying 51 men aloft, including the first deliberate stowaway in aviation history." In 1920, U.S. Navy balloon A-5598 departed for the air station. It went off-course and its crew of three were recorded missing for several weeks, lost in the Canadian wilderness. On August 31, 1921, an airship hangar caught fire.NY Times Sept. 1, 1921, Page 2, Biggest Navy Blimp Burns with 3 More
/ref> It destroyed the D-6U.S. Navy Goodyear Airship D-6 1921
blimp along with two small dirigibles, the C-10 and the H-1 and the kite balloon A-P. The D-6 was built by the

Naval Aircraft Factory The Naval Aircraft Factory (NAF) was established by the United States Navy in 1918 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was created to help solve aircraft supply issues which faced the Navy Department upon the entry of the U.S. into World War I. ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, to a designKite Balloons to Airships...the Navy's Lighter-than-Air Experience
/ref> somewhat different from the other five D-class airships. It featured an improved control car (the "D-1 Enclosed Cabin Car) which had a watertight bottom for landings on water, and internal fuel tanks. The station was demolished in 1930 to make way for

Jacob Riis Park Jacob Riis Park, also called Jacob A. Riis Park and Riis Park, is a seaside park on the southwestern portion of the Rockaway, Queens, Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City Boroughs of New York City, borough of Queens. It lies at the foot of ...

. Operations were moved across the inlet to a

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

in the municipal

Floyd Bennett Field Floyd Bennett Field is an airfield in the Marine Park neighborhood of southeast Brooklyn in New York City, along the shore of Jamaica Bay. The airport originally hosted commercial and general aviation traffic before being used as a naval air ...

, which itself was sold to the federal government in 1941 and made

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

. In turn, NAS New York was decommissioned in 1972 and is now a part of the

Gateway National Recreation Area Gateway National Recreation Area is a U.S. National Recreation Area in New York City and Monmouth County, New Jersey. It provides recreational opportunities that are not commonly found in a dense urban environment, including ocean swimming, bir ...

, as are Fort Tilden and Jacob Riis Park.

References

External links

Welcome to the Rockaway Naval Air Station
{{coord, 40, 34, 6, N, 73, 52, 21, W, region:US-NY_type:landmark, display=title Rockaway, Naval Air Station Installations of the United States Navy in New York City Rockaway, Queens Rocka Airports in Queens, New York Closed installations of the United States Navy Defunct airports in New York City