Arlington Heights Air Force Station

Arlington Heights Air Force Station is a closed United States Air Force General Surveillance Radar station. It is located 1.8 miles (2.9 km) south-southwest of Arlington Heights, Illinois. It was closed in 1969.

History

The origins of Arlington Heights Air Force Station begins at Williams Bay AFS, Wisconsin (Elkhorn, Wisconsin) when Air Defense Command ceased operations at that facility in January 1960 as a budget reduction move, the mission and organization being transferred to the existing United States Army Arlington Heights facility C-80DC for the Nike Missile air-defense system, as part of the Chicago-Gary Defense Area. Elkhorn was retained as a Gap Filler site for Arlington Heights. The 755th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron was reassigned to Arlington Heights, the site being designated by ADC as Arlington Heights Air Force Station and given the designation RP-31, reflecting it as a replacement faciity (RP) for the P-31 site at Williams Bay.

The Air Force site was activated on 1 April 1960 with AN/FPS-90A, AN/FPS-6, and AN/FPS-6B radars. The AN/FPS-20 was upgraded to an AN/FPS-67 during the following year. Radar data from Arlington Heights was soon fed directly into the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system Data Center DC-02 at Truax Field, Wisconsin, the squadron was re-designated as the 755th Radar Squadron (SAGE) on 15 October 1960. On 31 July 1963, the site was redesignated as NORAD ID Z-31, and a AN/FPS-90 radar had replaced the AN/FPS-6B for performing height-finding duties

In addition to the main facility, Arlington Heights operated the following AN/FPS-18 Gap Filler sites:

• Monee, IL (RP-31D)
• Williams Bay AFS, WI (RP-31F)

The 755th Radar Squadron was inactivated on 30 September 1969. The Army shut down Nike operations at the site in 1974.

See also

• List of USAF Aerospace Defense Command General Surveillance Radar Stations

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.

• Cornett, Lloyd H. and Johnson, Mildred W., A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization 1946 - 1980, [1] Office of History, Aerospace Defense Center, Peterson AFB, CO (1980).
• Winkler, David F. & Webster, Julie L., Searching the Skies, The Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program, [2] US Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories, Champaign, IL (1997).
• Information for Arlington Heights AFS, IL

External links