Backcountry Pilot

[BladeRunner offline]

I've wanted to ask this for a while. Kinda looks like it, and if it was, does anybody know the name of it. Any history on it,etc.?
Location: 18NM West of Riley Oregon, 16NM East of Hampton Oregon, 6NM NE of Glass Butte, on the North side of Ore Hwy 20. Looks like 2300 ft long X 130ft wide.

I know, I know...History is not everyone's bag, and it looks like the sage is back, so not of much use to BCP members.
Just wondering...Thanks.
Photo Credit: G-Earth
Mods: please move, if this is not the place.

[Dale Moul offline]

The Army built a few emergency strips in Oregon during the war, but they were all big enough to land a B 24 on, this looks about 1/2 size or less. Rome state and Alkali lake state are 2 former emergency strips left over from the war.

[svanarts offline]

History not everyone's bag? You haven't found the Giant Concrete Arrow thread have you? Lot's of airway history there. Many of the old airway beacons used by the airmail guys also had emergency landing strips built along the routes. I'll go back and see if this correlates to one of the beacons.

Edit: Does NOT correlate to an airway beacon location.

[BladeRunner offline]

Dale: Rodger that, on the Rome and Alk State airports in Eastern Oregon.
Scott/Svanarts, I thought the concrete arrows were to direct the aliens toward Roswell NM.

I've seen a few posts here at BCP that basically raze guys that post stuff about airports that are not usable, and was trying to avoid the same coming to me. ( case in point, Tunnel Meadows Ca. )

I used a G-earth measuring tool to get the dimensions. Sounds wide enough, not sure how much length a B-17, 24, 25, 26, or 29, would take on a normal day. What about a Fighter E-strip? Aux training strip for Stearmans? Anyways, it sure is interesting to speculate on. I guess it could have been built in the early years of the war ( therefore shorter ), or even part of the air-mail system. Maybe an E-strip for smaller aircraft only? With the way we were expecting the "land of the rising sun" to invade the West coast, who knows . Maybe just an early BLM/FS strip similar the other USFS strips for wildland fire purposes. I think back in the 1950's the policy was to have fires out in a day ( yeah, sure...), therefore many, many small strips. Doesn't cost much to plow up some sage and therefore have another fire asset available in case you need it. Closest airport would have been Burns or Millican and Brothers back then. And of course, we have all seen how short a FS strip can be.

Anybody else care to speculate? Share your opinion and lets all learn something.

[chosstronaut offline]

It is pretty close to the Fort Rock BLM strip, that is not on sectionals or published in any way. So my guess is that it's probably an old BLM strip or possibly a ranchers strip.

[Grassstrippilot offline]

In case you don't know of this site, it's a pretty cool resource for abandoned strips and history. You might be able to find something here, or contact them and see what they know.

I find this stuff interesting and often wonder which one of these abandoned strips might have potential to be revived.

http://www.airfields-freeman.com

[EZFlap offline]

A very large majority of WW2 training, auxiliary, and emergency strips are laid out as triangles. This is the reason that you see so many municipal and regional airports that still have that triangle somewhere in the runway layout, even though runways were extended in different directions over the years.

I believe most of the WW2 triangles were made up of runways that were about 3500 feet in length. This is enough to take off and land a B-17, but not when it's heavy. Apparently it's a kite when empty. The B-24 should need far more real estate than the B-17, whether empty or heavy. The famous "Davis wing" on the '24 was one of the early "natural laminar flow" airfoils, coupled with a high aspect ratio. Designed for cruise at altitude with very little compromise elsewhere.

The Freeman airfields website is an absolute gem. Anyone who loves aircraft history needs to spend some quality time there.