Ellsworth Air Force Base

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Ellsworth Air Force Base
B-1B Lancer at Ellsworth AFB
Characteristics
ICAO code KRCA
IATA code RCA
Coordinates

44 ° 8 '42 "  N , 103 ° 6' 13"  W Coordinates: 44 ° 8 '42 "  N , 103 ° 6' 13"  W
Height above MSL 999 m (3278  ft )
Transport links
Street I-90 / SD 230
Start-and runway
13/31 4114 m × 91 m concrete

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The Ellsworth Air Force Base is an air base of the US Air Force in South Dakota about 11 km east of Rapid City in the district of Meade County . It has an area of ​​4.9 km² .

The 28th Bomb Wing is stationed at Ellsworth AFB, which serves under Air Combat Command and is assigned to the 12th Air Force . The 28th flies the Rockwell B-1B Lancer .

The base controls all air traffic within 40 miles of the base, including commercial air traffic at Rapid City Airport. Near the main entrance is the South Dakota Air and Space Museum .

history

The base was opened as Rapid City Army Air Base in September 1942 as a training base for Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress” bombers .

On 13 June 1953 the basis of Brigadier General Richard E. Ellsworth , commander of the 28th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, in Ellsworth renamed. Ellsworth was killed along with pilot Major Frank C. Wright on March 18, 1953 when he crashed in an RB-36H on Random Island, Newfoundland . The RB-36H came after a four-day maneuver in a pack with 11 other RB-36s from Lajes Field in the Azores .

On 5 December 1964 on the launcher L-02 near Ellsworth Air Force Base a LGM30B-Minuteman I - ICBM put into tactical alert. Two Air Force employees had been assigned to the launch facility to repair the missile silo's security system. In the middle of the inspection, a brake rocket ignited under the warhead, causing it to fall about 23 m to the bottom of the rocket silo. On impact, the ignition and altitude control systems broke loose, so that the power supply to the warhead failed. The warhead was badly damaged by the impact, but all safety devices worked as intended so that there was no explosion or release of radioactive material.

In 2004 a commercial flight landed at Ellsworth Base for the first time, but the pilots on the Northwest Airlines flight had mistaken the base for Rapid City Airport. A mix-up that also happened to the crew of a Delta Air Lines scheduled flight on July 7, 2016 .

While the space shuttle was in operation, Ellsworth Air Force Base was a possible emergency landing site in the event of an unscheduled landing.

Imminent closure

The Department of Defense on 13 May 2005 at the Base Realignment and Closure program ( BRAC recommended) to close the base, the decision should US President George W. Bush meet on 23 September, 2005. The Senator from South Dakota, John Thune tried to save the base; he even announced that he would vote against the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations as a protest against the threatened closure . The B-1B stationed in Ellsworth should have been moved to Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.

The base was removed from the list of institutions to be closed on August 23, 2005, after the BRAC commission decided with 8: 1 votes to keep the base.

future

From the mid-2020s it will become the first base of operations for the Northrop Grumman B-21 .

Web links

Commons : Ellsworth Air Force Base  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.milnet.com/cdiart.htm
  2. ↑ DL2845 ( A320-200 , N333NW) from Minneapolis (MSP) to Rapid City (RAP), cf. http://avherald.com: Incident: Delta A320 at Rapid City on Jul 7th 2016, landed on wrong airport .
  3. ^ Justine Whitman: Space Shuttle Abort Modes. Aerospaceweb.org, June 25, 2006, accessed October 7, 2011 .
  4. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/26/AR2005082601599.html