Beale Air Force Base

Beale Air Force Base
Characteristics
ICAO code	KBAB
IATA code	BAB
Coordinates	39 ° 8 ′ 10 ″  N , 121 ° 26 ′ 11 ″  W Coordinates: 39 ° 8 ′ 10 ″  N , 121 ° 26 ′ 11 ″  W
Height above MSL	34 m (112  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	10 miles east of Marysville
Basic data
opening	1942
operator	United States Air Force
surface	93,000 ha
Employees	4000
Start-and runway
13/33	3658 m of concrete

The Beale Air Force Base (in short: Beale AFB ) is a military airport of the United States Air Force near Marysville , California . The ICAO code is KBAB, the IATA code BAB. The base was named after the pioneer Edward Fitzgerald Beale (1822-1893). Beale has been under the Air Combat Command since 1992 .

history

Camp Beale was established in 1942 as the United States Army training base for the 13th Armored and the 81st and 96th Infantry Divisions . During the Second World War , 60,000 US soldiers lived on the base , a 1000-bed hospital was also set up there and it was used as a camp for prisoners of war . After the end of the war, it was handed over by the Army to the Air Force in 1948, which used training targets for their bombers there , and later also for training ground crews.

The runway was built in 1958, and a year later the first Boeing KC-135 tankers were relocated to Beale . In 1964, the Department of Defense announced that the new Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird supersonic reconnaissance aircraft would be stationed at Beale AFB . The 4200th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing was created in 1965, and in 1966 the first of two Blackbirds came to the California Air Force Base. These were assigned to the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing , also on Beale , in the summer of 1966 . In 1976, the reconnaissance capabilities were supplemented by Lockheed U-2 , which came from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base . In 1990 the SR-71 were deactivated, in 1994 the tankers of the 350th Air Refueling Squadron also went , these were moved to McConnell Air Force Base .

In 1998 tankers of the Reserve Squadron 940th Air Refueling Wing returned , followed by reconnaissance units of the 12th Reconnaissance Squadron in 2001 . From Beale , it operates U-2, Northrop T-38 Talon training jets and the RQ-4A Global Hawk drone .

PAVE PAWS radar station

At Beale Air Force Base , the Air Force Space Command also maintains a radar station of the PAVE-PAWS network for capturing the launch of submarine-launched ballistic missiles in the Pacific.

Web links

• Homepage of Beale AFB

Satellite image

Global Hawk at the launch of Beale