Louis Blotner Radar Bomb Scoring Site | |
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Loring Air Force Base, Aroostook, Maine | |
Coordinates | 47°00′30″N68°01′07″W / 47.00833°N 68.01861°W [1] |
Type | military radar station |
Area | 6.59 acres (2.67 ha) [2] [3] |
The Louis Blotner Radar Site was a tracking site (Not an RBS site) in Connor, Maine at the former NIKE missile launch site. Activated in June 1963 and operational until after 1979, The Ashland site was an AUTOTRACK radar site operated by Detachment 7 of the 1st Combat Evaluation Group. [4] The station simulated Electronic Countermeasures and Radar Bomb Scoring for the Ashland Training Range's low-level training route "over Bangor north to Houlton, Maine." [3]
The site was constructed at a former 1957 NIKE battery control area (radar site) which, had been conveyed to Blotner Trailer Sales in 1962, [1] the SAC radar station was initially a mobile site with temporarily-emplaced systems. [5] In 1975, the site was planned to become permanent, [3] but instead groundbreaking in June 1979 was for the nearby Ashland Radar Station. [5] [6] The "Blotner Site" was subsequently used for Louis Blotner Communications Facility No. 1 of Det 2, 1000 SOG in 1987-1993, and the enlisted men's barracks operated as a general store in August 1992. [1] In 1996 the former Ashland site was planned for civilian transfer. [7]
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RBS Express railroad trains were 3 mobile United States Air Force radar stations for 1CEVG Radar Bomb Scoring (RBS) of Strategic Air Command bomber crews beginning in March 1961. Electronic equipment included the "MSQ-39, TLQ-11, MPS-9, and the IFF/SIF for the MSQ-39" along with support railcars, and the trains were temporarily used at various rail sites with the radar antennas emplaced using hoists built onto flatcars. Pulled by a "contracted locomotive" that left the train at the site, and a North American B-25 Mitchell was used for calibration of the radar station.
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Ashland Radar Station was a United States Air Force station located in Ashland, Maine operational from around 1975 to 1990. Sitting on 6.59 acres (2.67 ha).
GPS 47-00-41, 68-01-11…16-unit housing area at[ verification needed ] was transferred to the Air Force and became Loring Family Housing Annex No. 3, NRCX
Ashland Radar Bomb Scoring consists of 6.59 acre parcel in Ashland, southwest of Loring AFB.(map shows "Blotner Site" northeast of the "Det 7, 1st CEVG" site.)
The Ashland radar site complex consists of a power production plant, a maintenance and supply area, a communications room, an operations area, administrative offices, and the radar scoring and ECM areas. Although the local RBS site is now permanent…We'll be having a full water supply and a sewer system. [Lt. Col. James H. Tiller, after being stationed at the Bismarck Bomb Plot, assumed] his first command at the Ashland site
Lt. Col. Gene Riggs, Chief of Radar Bomb Development, Headquarters, 1st Combat Evaluation Group at Barksdale AFB, La.; Col. Anthony Papaner 1, Deputy Commander for Radar Bomb Scoring, Headquarters, at Barksdale …