Clear Air Force Station
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Clear Air Force Station is a United States Air Force Base located 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of Anderson, Alaska. The 13th Space Warning Squadron is located at this base.
History
Rumor has it that operations began in the Clear area when a small dirt landing strip was constructed alongside the railroad in World War II to aid pilots ferrying P-39 and P-63 fighter planes to Russia. During the post-war period, Clear served as a gunnery range for the Army Air Corps, and later as a divert field for Air Force aircraft operating in Alaska.
In 1959, a strip of wilderness at Clear was appropriated to become Site II of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS). Groundbreaking for the new radar took place in May of that year. Over the next two years, construction would continue on the three detection radars that would become Clear's trademark. The radars, where designed by GE and MIT Lincoln Labs and built by RCA.
Operational capability was achieved in 1961. Although the site belonged to the Air Force, civilian contractor personnel actually performed the missile-warning mission until 1964, when Air Force personnel finally permanently manned the station.
In 1964, the Good Friday Earthquake, caused the site to "go red" (unable to perform the mission) for six minutes.
On January 1, 1967, the 13th Missile Warning Squadron was created at Clear AFS. In 1971, the 13th MWS was reassigned from the 71st Missile Warning Wing to the 14th Aerospace Force. The 13th was reassigned from Air Defense Command to the Strategic Air Command (SAC) through 15th Air Force in 1979.
In 1981, Clear underwent a major modification when it was feared that the radome, housing the tracker radar, was unsafe. This project saw the disassembly of the tracker, the demolishing of the existing radome, the construction of a new radome, and the reconstruction of the tracker.
The 13th was again reassigned on 1 May 1983, this time to Space Command's 1st Space Wing.
Ground was broken for a new radar is known as the Solid-State Phased-Array Radar System (SSPARS--pronounced ES-pars) in 1998. The SSPARS is a PAVE PAWS radar.
On 15 December 2000, after nearly 40 years of operation, the last of the original BMEWS radars ceased transmitting, and the SSPARS began 24-hour operations.
The 13th Space Warning Squadron is currently undergoing a transition to the Alaska Air National Guard. During the summer of 2006, the Alaska Air National Guard will activate the 213th Space Warning Squadron to assume the duties of the 13th (which will be deactivated). Clear Air Force Station will remain an active duty Air Force installation, but military manning will be provided by the Alaska Air National Guard.
External Links
Clear Air Force Station (http://www.clear.af.mil/)
