Connally AFB:
TSTC Waco Airport (IATA: CNW, ICAO: KCNW) formerly known as Waco Army Air Field, Connally Air Force Base and James Connally Air Force Base is an airport north of Waco, Texas.
It is currently used as an industrial airpark operated by Texas State Technical College System as well as its Waco campus.
President George W. Bush flies in and out of the airport on Air Force One during visits to his home at the Prairie Chapel Ranch.
L-3 Communications operates the Waco Integration Center at the airport which is a full service aircraft modification center operating out of 430,000 square feet in hangar space and employing 1,500 people.[1]
The airport's IATA code of "CNW" is a combination of its Connally and Waco connections.
Servion is the airport's FBO.
[edit] History
The airport opened May 5, 1942 as Waco Army Air Field and was the headquarters Army Air Force Central Instructors' School during World War II. It was deactivated after the war in 1945 but was reactivated in 1948 as a pilot training school and was named for Colonel James T. Connally who had been killed in Japan in 1945. The airport was initially called Connally Air Force Base but the name evolved to also include his first name.
In 1951 it discontinued pilot training but started training navigators, radar operators, and bombardiers, with particular emphasis for those officers slated for eventual assignment to Strategic Air Command's B-36 Peacemaker and its ever-increasing fleet of B-47 Stratojets.
In 1957, the base became the headquarters of Twelfth Air Force (12 AF).
In 1965, the Air Force began sharing the base with the State of Texas, the latter having established the James Connally Technical Institute (JCTI) of Texas A & M University. which would eventually become part of Texas State Technical Institute TSTI).
In 1966, Convair / General Dynamics established a modification center at the base to modify B-58 Hustlers.
In 1968, as part of a nation-wide reduction in air force bases and naval air stations, James Connally AFB was closed, all navigator training consolidated at Mather Air Force Base, California and 12th Air Force relocated to Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas. At this point, the State of Texas bought the airport for use as a technical school while General Dynamics remained as a tenant performing mdification work on various military aircraft. The General Dynamics facility was later sold and has since been renamed Chrysler Technologies Airborne Systems.
In 1991, TSTI was renamed Texas State Tecnical College (TSTC).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
| 