Twentynine Palms Airport is a public 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 surfa ...

located six nautical miles (11 km) east of the central business district of Twentynine Palms, a city in

San Bernardino County San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 2,181, ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It is owned by the County of San Bernardino.

History

It was activated on 1 January 1942 by the

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 ...

. It started as USAAF contract

glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...

training, and was called Twenty-Nine Palms Air Academy until 16 February 1943. It had four axillary airfields in local area, including Condor Field. Flying training was performed with Fairchild PT-19s 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 kno ...

s and a few

P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and ...

s assigned. It conducted basic flying training from March 1943 until being transferred to United States Navy April 1944. General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces, ordered the training for 150 glider pilots for World War II. By the end of WW2 over 6,000 glider pilots had been trained. In all 1,654 of the glider pilots were trained at the Twentynine Palms Air Academy. It was under USN control and became an auxiliary airfield to

NAS San Diego Naval Air Station North Island or NAS North Island , at the north end of the Coronado peninsula on San Diego Bay in San Diego, California, is part of the largest aerospace-industrial complex in the United States Navy – Naval Base Coronado (NB ...

.29palms.marines.mil, Twentynine Palms 29th, page A7
/ref>

Facilities and aircraft

Twentynine Palms Airport covers an area of at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...

of 1,888 feet (575 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. It has two

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 ...

paved

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, concre ...

s: 8/26 is 5,531 by 75 feet (1,686 x 23 m) and 17/35 is 3,797 by 50 feet (1,157 x 15 m). For the 12-month period ending February 16, 2006, the airport had 18,000 aircraft operations, an average of 49 per day: 97%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

and 3%

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

. At that time there were 16 aircraft based at this airport: 68% single-

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

, 6% multi-engine and 25%

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.

External links

Twentynine Palms Airport
at County of San Bernardino website
openNav: TNP / KTNP charts
*
{{USAAF Training Bases World War II Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in California Airports in San Bernardino County, California Twentynine Palms, California USAAF Contract Flying School Airfields 1942 establishments in California Airports established in 1942 California in World War II

History

Facilities and aircraft

See also

References

Other sources

External links