Ghost towns have always been fascinating to me ever since I visited Drawbridge, CA. The San Francisco bay area's very own ghost town. So then my attention turned to ghost airports. I watched a rerun of a History channel special on the Manhattan Project last night and started poking around the various sites in Google Earth. I was looking at Hanford, WA when I ran across a ghost airport at this location:

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You may have to click the plus signs to zoom in enough to see it.

I checked for information on a website that is devoted to abandoned airports and couldn't find any info. That website is: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/

Does anyone here know anything about this "ghost airport." I figure it has to be related to the doings at Hanford somehow. Won't kill me if I never find out but it can't hurt to ask.

There is a guy in Seattle named David Herman that tracks all of the old airports in the state of Washington.

His website is http://www.lostairports.com

But...he doesn't have it listed either.

He has a slick website!

Old picture.... But I can still see my house!!!!

Gump

I love abandoned airfields too. This same guy has done some serious research of airfields in my neck of the woods and others.

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/UT/Air ... UT_SE.html

I don't know about it but I saw it when looking for places to fly up there in Hanford.
I just seeded all around it and flew off of two roads within five miles of it. Lot of cool old stuff around there like the missle site just SW of it at the base of Rattlesnake Mtn.

This one is not on the charts either. It's a bit north of Las Vegas. I'll have to try landing there someday!

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Here's another one.

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/index.htm

kevbert wrote:This one is not on the charts either. It's a bit north of Las Vegas. I'll have to try landing there someday!

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I have a friend who used to fly in and out of that place several times a week. Of course, he was in the back of an all-white windowless jet that had no registration markings or identification of any kind, and he wasn't supposed to know where he was.....

svanarts wrote:I was looking at Hanford, WA when I ran across a ghost airport at this location:

That's not an airport, It's an observatory. The LIGO Hanford Observatory to be exact. http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/. "LIGO" stands for "Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory" and it's goal is to detect gravitational waves. The two long runway-looking things are the tunnels along which the laser beams are transmitted.

geekxx wrote:

svanarts wrote:I was looking at Hanford, WA when I ran across a ghost airport at this location:

That's not an airport, It's an observatory. The LIGO Hanford Observatory to be exact. http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/. "LIGO" stands for "Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory" and it's goal is to detect gravitational waves. The two long runway-looking things are the tunnels along which the laser beams are transmitted.

On closer inspection I see that there is actually the faint trace of an airport south of the observatory. Cool.

here is a couple u guys could explore, or at least do a low pass, when
u r in j.c this year...do u know where the old yellowpine airport is, and
also, how about falconberry...?

i believe we have half a chance of falconberry being open again...till then
we'll have to hike the 7 miles in from indian springs...lots of history there!

geekxx wrote:

geekxx wrote:

svanarts wrote:I was looking at Hanford, WA when I ran across a ghost airport at this location:

That's not an airport, It's an observatory. The LIGO Hanford Observatory to be exact. http://www.ligo-wa.caltech.edu/. "LIGO" stands for "Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory" and it's goal is to detect gravitational waves. The two long runway-looking things are the tunnels along which the laser beams are transmitted.

On closer inspection I see that there is actually the faint trace of an airport south of the observatory. Cool.

yeah, and I'm just curious if the runway was associated with the Manhattan Project or if it was a part of the community that was there prior to all the nuke stuff. Reading about history puts me to sleep but finding it on the floor of the desert is cool.