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Positioned on 1,451 acres three miles north of West Hampton Seaside within the City of Southampton in Suffolk County, Lengthy Island, county-owned Francis S. Gabreski Airport is each a civil and navy facility and serves because the gateway to Lengthy Island’s famed Hamptons. It has a wealthy historical past.
Constructed in 1943 as a World Warfare II United States Military Air Drive sub-base of Mitchel Subject, it was later assigned to the First Air Drive, whose 437th Military Air Drive Base flew anti-submarine patrols. After the battle, it was designated a civilian subject.
As soon as once more reverting to navy utility in 1951 due to the Korean Warfare Nationwide Emergency, it was renamed Suffolk County Air Drive Base. The Air Nationwide Guard’s 103rd Fighter-Interceptor Wing, together with the 118th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron and its fleet of Republic P-47N Thunderbolts, was federalized that 12 months and relocated from Brainerd Subject in Connecticut to the air base on June 1.
The 103rd Fighter-Interceptor Wing was changed by the forty fifth and seventy fifth Fighter-Interceptor Squadrons in November of 1952, which operated North American F-86 Sabre Jets as a part of the twenty third Fighter-Interceptor Group.
After three years, the group itself was reassigned to Presque Isle Air Drive Base in Maine and changed by the newly activated 52nd Fighter-Interceptor Wing.
Due to the Vietnam Warfare-caused monetary constraints, the Suffolk County Air Drive Base was deactivated in 1969 and was as soon as once more transferred to Suffolk County for civilian operations for the aim of “the event, enchancment, and operation and upkeep of the airport” below the auspices of the Federal Aviation Administration.
But navy operations have been reintroduced in June of 1970 when the 102nd Air Refueling Squadron of the New York Air Nationwide Guard was transferred there from the now-closed Floyd Bennett Subject Naval Air Station, basing its Boeing KC-97 Strato-freighters there.
Redesignated Francis S. Gabreski Airport in 1991 after America’s biggest residing ace, at the moment it serves as a personal, company, and air taxi facility and can also be residence to the 106th Rescue Wing of the Air Nationwide Guard, which operates Lockheed HC-130P Hercules and HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, the one fleet of rescue plane based mostly within the northeastern a part of the nation.
With three runways–5,000-foot 01/19, 9,000-foot 06/24, and 5,000-foot 15/33–it affords the longest of any Lengthy Island basic aviation subject and is simply eclipsed by these at JFK. Its services embody a terminal constructing with two rental automobile counters and the Apron Café; Shelt-Air Aviation Providers, the airport’s solely fastened base operator, with gasoline, plane parking, and servicing; the Suffolk County police’s Aviation Part, which bases a helicopter there; and the Hampton Enterprise District, whose eventual 400,000-square foot Industrial Park promotes area people progress.
Within the 12 months ended on December 31, 2010, it the airport had 107 based mostly plane and fielded 83,712 annual actions.
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Source by Robert Waldvogel