Hangars at Phoenix area’s Falcon Field get spot on national historic register
Sep 15, 2016, 8:56 AM
(Instagram Photo)
(Instagram Photo)
PHOENIX — A pair of World War II-era hangars at Falcon Field, a small suburban Phoenix airport, have been recognized as historic sites.
Officials in Mesa said the U.S. Interior Department recently added the buildings to the National Register of Historic Places.
The application for consideration on the register cited use of the East and West hangars as training facilities for U.S. Army Air Corps and British Royal Air Force during the war.
(National Park Service Photo)
Falcon Field was built in 1941, with construction completed in July. Two months later the site near Greenfield and McKellips roads was serving as a pilot training base, one of six British Flight Training Schools in America.
According to the application, “Falcon Field was part of a flight training program negotiated between the United States
and Great Britain during 1940-41.”
More than 2,000 pilots earned their wings there during the war before operations ceased in September 1945, right after the war came to an end.
(Facebook Photo)
The federal government transferred ownership of Falcon Field to Mesa in August 1948.
The air field was at one time an aviation museum while still functioning as a general aviation airport. Falcon Field houses more than 700 aircraft.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
