Arlington Heights Air Force Station | |
call sign: tbd | |
United States Air Force general surveillance radar station | |
Country | United States |
---|---|
State | Illinois |
Command | 1960-1969: Air Defense Command (later Aerospace Defense Command) |
Garrison | 755th Radar Squadron |
- coordinates | 42°03′51.5″N 87°59′44″W / 42.064306°N 87.99556°W |
Annexes | Gap Filler radar sites (AN/FPS-18) |
- RP-31D Monee, Illinois | 41°24′36″N 087°45′54″W / 41.41000°N 87.76500°W |
- RP-31F Williams Bay AFS WI | 42°36′57″N 088°32′23″W / 42.61583°N 88.53972°W |
Code | 1960 April 1: RP-31 (ADC) 1963 July 31: Z-31 (NORAD) |
Arlington Heights Air Force Station was a 1960-1969USAF general surveillance radar station 1.8 miles (2.9 km) south-southwest of Arlington Heights, Illinois.
Arlington Field opened in 1942, as an auxiliary airfield for the nearby NRAB Chicago and which had a World War II prisoner-of-war camp, opened on May 4, 1945, with 75 German POWs.Project Nike Integrated Fire Control Site C-80 of the 45th Antiaircraft Brigade opened at Arlington Field in 1955, and in January 1960, the 755th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron transferred to the field from Williams Bay Air Force Station at Elkhorn, Wisconsin, while the co-located Arlington Heights Army Installation was being built for a Project Nike Army Air Defense Command Post.
Arlington Heights Air Force Station was activated on 1 April 1960, when Williams Bay AFS was redesignated from P-31 to gap-filler RP-31F. In 1962, the station began providing Semi-Automatic Ground Environment radar tracks to Data Center DC-02 at Truax Field, Wisconsin, for the Chicago Air Defense Sector's ground-controlled interception. One of the two Arlington Heights Air Force Station's General Electric AN/FPS-6 Radars height finders was upgraded to the -6B variant and then the -90 variant, and the station's Bendix AN/FPS-20 Radar was also upgraded to an AN/FPS-67. The 755th inactivated on September 30, 1969, and Project Concise ended the site's Nike operations in 1974--52 acres (21 ha) transferred to the city parks district. A May 1979 golf course was built near the nuclear bunker--the Arlington Lakes Golf Club has 90 acres (36 ha) with 14 lakes.