We at HiTech Creations have been making and improving Aces High for over sixteen years now and we remain at the top of the heap of online combat flight simulators. Quite frankly that even surprises us from time to time. Not that we are complaining; we are just a little surprised at our success and occasionally we get a little reflective and wonder how it all happened.
One of the keys to our success in the flight sim world is our dedication to all things related to World War 2. We are fascinated by the war and we are constantly learning more about it. That is how this series of articles happened; we were thinking about the at home effort during the war and wondering what each state did here while the war was raging elsewhere.
Today we’ll take a brief look at the airfields that were built in California during the war years.
- Bishop AAF; now Eastern Sierra Regional Airport
- Concord AAF; now Buchanan Field Airport
- Delano AAF; now Delano Municipal Airport
- Gardner AAF; now agricultural use
- Lockheed Air Terminal; now Bob Hope Airport
- Los Angeles Airport/Miners Field AAF; now Los Angeles International Airport
- Arysville AAF; now Yuba County Airport
- McClellan Field; now McClellan Airfield
- Muroc Flight Test Base/AAF; now Edwards Air Force Base
- Blythe AAf; now Blythe Airport
- Palmdale AAF; now Palmdale Regional Airport
- Oakland MAP; now Metropolitan Oakland International Airport
- Redding AAF; now Redding Munipal Airport
- San Bernardino AAF; now San Bernardino International Airport
For today we’ll have to stop but we will return to California later to pick up the rest of the airfields that were built during WWII. Suffice it to say that there were quite a few more as California is a large state with quite a few geographic features that make it a perfect location for airfields.
During the war pilots and aircrews were trained at these airfields. Many of them were also used to stage supplies as a waystop until they could be shipped on to the Pacific Theater where they were needed. These airfields were remarkable in that many of them were made literally within days; heavy machinery was brought in and around the clock the clearing and paving was done so that an airfield suddenly appeared where three days earlier there was just scrub land. Quite remarkable indeed!
Anyway, we will return to the California story in our next installment of this series. Check out our Special Events calendar to see what great events are coming up for our World War 2 Flight Simulator
