Nellis Air Force Base Complex | |
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Location | basin[ specify ] between Quartzite Mountain & the Belted Range 37°32′N116°12′W / 37.533°N 116.200°W |
The Nellis Air Force Base Complex [1] (Nellis AFB complex, [2] [3] NAFB Complex [1] ) is the southern Nevada military region of federal facilities and lands, e.g., currently and formerly used for military and associated testing and training such as Atomic Energy Commission atmospheric nuclear detonations of the Cold War. The largest land area of the complex is the Nevada Test and Training Range, and numerous Formerly Used Defense Sites remain federal lands of the complex. Most of the facilities are controlled by the United States Air Force and/or the Bureau of Land Management, and many of the controlling units are based at Creech and Nellis Air Force Bases (e.g., 98th SRSS for NTTR's southern range). Initiated by a 1939 military reconnaissance for a bombing range, [4] federal acquisition began in 1940, and McCarran Field became the World War II training area's 1st of 3 Nevada World War II Army Airfields (cf. Indian Springs & Tonopah) and 10 auxiliary fields. The area's first military unit was initially headquartered in the Las Vegas Federal Building while the WWII Las Vegas Army Airfield buildings were constructed.
The complex is primarily within the Great Basin physiographic section, and the White River portion east of the Great Basin Divide is in the Colorado River Watershed. Ecology is primarily Tonopah Basin surrounding elevated areas (Foothills/Uplands & High Valleys/Mid-Slope Woodland & Brushland) and 6 Tonopah Playas in Antelope Lake's valley, Cactus Flat, Groom Lake Valley, southern Railroad Valley, Sand Springs Valley, and the northwest NTTR corner. [5] The southern part of the complex in the Mojave Desert ecoregion is mostly Creosote Bush-Dominated Basins and Arid Footslopes (Jackass Flats is in the Amargosa Desert ecoregion.) [5] The complex includes 2 Salt Deserts—in the Coal Valley which has 3 sites of the "ADA activity area" (110E, 110F, & 110G) and in Dry Lake Valley (site 103 along the Burnt Springs Range). [3] The highest ecoregion is in the Tonopah Bombing Range (FUDS) which includes a Central Nevada Bald Mountains ecoregion [5] in the Kawich Range—the southern Bald Mountains are within the NTTR between the TTR & Wildhorse Management Area. The Logistic Supply Area of the ADA activity area is near the only Wetland ecoregion of the Tonopah Basin—in the Pahrangat Valley near both the Mojave ecotone and the northeast corner of the DNWR. [3]
Traversing the complex is the mid-1800s Utah & New Mexico Territories' dividing line (37th parallel north), and the area was used for the 1900–1921 silver rush (e.g., Tonopah Mining District [6] & Tonopah Manhattan Stage Route) [7] The region of mining claims was grouped into numbered geographic areas (e.g., Area 2, Area 5, Area 11, Area 12, Area 25, Area 27, Area 52) which are used for current names, e.g., "Area 3 Compound" [8] and "Groom Lake Field" ("Area 51" colloq.). [9] [ self-published source ] The 1941-9 demarcation between the Tonopah & Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Ranges (Parallel 36°30′ north) is generally along the serpentine Creosote Bush ecotone between the Central Basin and Range ecoregion and "Mojavian flora". [5]
The Nellis managed airspace [3] : 4–13 associated with the complex is more than 12,700 sq mi (33,000 km2), [2] is the responsibility of the "US Air Force Virtual (USAFv), A3", and "is composed of the Desert MOA, with overlying Air Traffic Control Assigned Airspace (ATCAA), Reveille North and South MOA and ATCAA, [and] Restricted Areas": [10]
The former Oil Burner/Olive Branch route ("OB-10-Hawthorne") for Strategic Air Command low-level bomber flights scored by the Hawthorne Bomb Plot extended from a "point west of Elko, Nevada, running southwest to Mina, Nevada" at flight level "FL130-140" [12] (the TTR sites for "SAC Targets 1 and 2" [13] are at Antelope Lake.) [8]
The Nevada Division of Wildlife's Key Pittman Wildlife Management Area has a NOAA weather station, and Wilderness Areas include the "Worthington Mountains, Weepah Springs, Big Rocks, [and] Ash Springs Wildlife Area". Lands for federal protection of natural resources include: [3]
Military operations "when a tortoise is found in harms way" are suspended until it has been removed by an authorized biologist (e.g., dispatched by the Nellis AFB Natural Resources Manager), nesting surveys are conducted prior to military exercises for species protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the BLM & USFS provide protections under the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act. [3]
Area | Location (landforms, etc.) | Facilities/sites | Agency | Years | Size |
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Nevada Test and Training Range—shares ~1,276 sq mi (3,300 km2) of the Southern Range with the DNWR | Northern Range: Southern Range: southern Tikaboo Valley, Dogbone Dry Lake in Range 62, [15] | Northern: Tolich Peak ECR, Tonopah ECR Southern: Point Bravo ECR, Dogbone Lake G&BR, [15] Groom Lake Field in Area 51 | USAF | 1942–present | 4,531 sq mi (11,740 km2) |
Nevada National Security Site •includes Camp Desert Rock FUDS of 23,058 acres (9,331 ha) [16] J09NV0276 | Frenchman Flat, Jackass Flats, Yucca Flat, Rainer & Pahute Mesas, | 10 heliports, 2 "wild horse units ... Unit 252 [&] Unit 253", [1] Pahute Mesa Airstrip (Area 18), Desert Rock Airport (Area 20), "Yucca Lake UAV testing facility", "Yucca Mountain Underground Facility", [15] Big Explosives Experimental Facility (Area 4), Criticality Experiments Facility (Area 6), former Base Camp Mercury | DOE | 1951–present | ~1,355 sq mi (3,510 km2) |
Desert National Wildlife Refuge land east of the NTTR | FUDS: Former NAFR Areas B-G, [17] e.g., Area F of 47,481.50 acres (19,215.08 ha) [18] | USFWS | 1936–present | 1,248 sq mi (3,230 km2) | |
Tonopah Bombing Range (FUDS)* J09NV1114 | Stone Cabin, Hot Creek, Railroad, Tikaboo, and Sand Springs valleys ("60 miles east of Tonopah") | USFWS National Wildlife Refuge of ~22.25 sq mi (57.6 km2) at the Kawich Range, Rachel community (Sand Springs Valley), Area 51 viewing areas (Tonopah Uplands along Tikaboo Valley) | BLM [19] | 1942–19xx (FUDS: 1999) | ~311,040 acres (125,870 ha) [20] |
Tonopah Rifle Range J09NV0970 Tonopah Army Airfield Practice Bombing Ranges* J09NV1112 [21] | "Sand Spring[ sic ]-Tikaboo Valleys" [22] | 1941-tbd | |||
Area A J09NV1103 | north and northeast of NTTR | former ranges 46-56 "returned to public domain" by 1941 EO9019 and 1957 EO10355 | BLM | ~1,107 sq mi (2,870 km2) [23] | |
Tonopah Test Range | "Cactus and Gold Flats, Kawich Valley, Goldfield Hills, and the Stonewall Mountains", [1] Cactus Flat, Antelope Lake Valley | Tonopah Test Range Airport (Cactus Flat), Operations Control Center (Area 3), Area 10 airfield/strip, Mellan Airstrip (37°41′16″N 116°37′50″W), | DOE | 1957–present | ~280 sq mi (730 km2) [1] |
Humboldt National Forest | "Total Acreage" includes "217,086" acres not federally-owned [24] | 2,618,165 acres (1,059,534 ha) [24] | |||
Wildhorse Management Area | bordered on 3 sides by the NTTR Northern Range and on the north, Tonopah Bombing Range (FUDS) | BLM [1] | |||
Nellis Air Force Base | Las Vegas Valley (northeast corner) adjacent to North Las Vegas | Area I: Airport, "Nellis Control", Suter Hall Area II: former Lake Mead Base J09NV0442 Area III: Armory, family housing | USAF | 1941-6, 1947–present | 17.7 sq mi (46 km2) |
Nellis Small Arms Range Complex | Las Vegas Valley & Mojave Arid Footslopes of Sheep Mountain, "north of the main base of Nellis AFB" and adjacent to "World War II Gunnery Range (FUDS)" on west and north | active area: 6,957 acres (2,815 ha) inactive (MRA MU732): 6.2 sq mi (16 km2) | USAF tbd | 1941–present 1941-65 [2] | 17.1 sq mi (44 km2) |
Tonopah Air Force Base J09NV0969 | BLM | 1942–195x | 7,228.23 acres (2,925.16 ha) [19] | ||
Creech Air Force Base | adjacent to Indian Springs, Nevada and FUDS J09NV0399 (Indian Springs AFAF land designated a FUDS by 2002) [25] | Joint Unmanned Aerial Systems Center of Excellence UAV-Logistic and Training Facility | USAF | 1942-5, 1948–present | 2,300 acres (930 ha) [18] |
Patriot "Radar/Communications activity area" ("ADA activity area"), part of eastern DNWR | Coal V (sites 110E*, F*, G), Delamar V (102, 108), Dry Lake V (103), Pahranagat V (LSA), Sand Springs V (112C, E, F, G, H, I), Six Mile Flat (109), | Logistics Support Area (LSA) at Alamo Airfield & 13 sites each 500 ft × 500 ft (150 m × 150 m) *in "wild horse Herd Management Areas (HMA) [3] | BLM [3] : 1–1 | 2008–present | 74.1 acres (30.0 ha) [3] + |
Las Vegas Air Force Station J09NV0445 Lathrop Wells radar site Red Mountain VORTAC site FAA radar facility (former Tonopah AFS) Former GATR & Soviet radar site | Portion is leased to Nellis AFB[ citation needed ] west of Indian Springs near Boulder City, Nevada 38°03′06″N117°13′32″W / 38.05167°N 117.22556°W in Esmeralda Co. 38°08′37″N117°11′57″W / 38.14361°N 117.19917°W "near the former" TAFS | Former Phoenix ADS radar site Former Phoenix ADS radar site Former Phoenix ADS radar site 2 radar platforms at former Reno ADS site Former Reno ADS site | FAA FAA USAF | 1956-69 1956-70 | |
Regional Training Complex (Silver Flag Alpha facility) | ~15 miles south of Indian Springs on US95 [26] | 12 small arms ranges, MOUT village, bare base tent city, maneuver area | |||
Tonopah (TPH) VORTAC | 38°01′50.321″N117°02′00.627″W / 38.03064472°N 117.03350750°W [27] near Nye County's Tonopah Airport ( 38°03′37″N117°05′12″W / 38.06028°N 117.08667°W ) | FAA | |||
Hawthorne Bomb Plot | Babbitt, Nevada (Mineral County) | former "USAF Radar Station" for RBS | USAF US Navy | 1962–1985 1993 | |
Delamar Dry Lake Test Annex J09NV0023 | Delamar Valley | ||||
Sunrise Mountain Machine Gun Range J09NV0639 | |||||
"North Las Vegas Station" near Nellis AFB "Key Pittman WMA station" | 4.19 in (106 mm) average precipcipitation/year 7.94 in (202 mm) " | Climatology monitoring sites (weather stations) [3] : 3–1 | NOAA | 1951–present 1964–present |
The original 1940 area named Tonopah Bombing Range was split during WWII and 1 of the 2 subdivisions was named Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range in 1947. In 1999 a different area was named a FUDS with the original name--"Tonopah Bombing Range" (J09NV1114)—and the different FUDS J09NV1112 was given a new name --"Tonopah Army Airfield Practice Bombing Ranges"—by 1999. [21]
The Las Vegas Valley (the Valley) is a bowl-shaped basin surrounded by rugged mountain ranges. The entire hydrographic basin is 1,600 square miles. The western edge of the Valley is approximately 5 miles west of Lake Mead, which is an impoundment on the Colorado River. The Valley occupies a structural basin in the Basin and Range Province of the northern Mojave Desert, and most shallow groundwater and all surface flows are transported to Lake Mead via the Las Vegas Wash.... The total land area occupied by Nellis AFB and its restricted ranges is more than 5,000 square miles. An additional 7,700 square miles of airspace north and east of the restricted ranges also are available for military flight operations.... Table 2-1 Former Ranges and Impact Areas.... The Small Arms Range Ordnance Ejection Site OT-39, now known as OT-37, located in the active portion of the Nellis Small Arms Range ... MU732 is currently inactive and considered a closed range but is accessed by authorized installation personnel, authorized contractors and visitors, and trespassers.(small arms annex areas on p. 5-1)
Plant communities in this region are characterized by Mojave Desert Scrub and Great Basin Desert Scrub biomes (Brown, 1994).... Great Basin Desert Scrub evolved from both cold-temperate and warm-temperate vegetation and is characterized by communities dominated by sagebrush (Artemisia spp.), shadscale (A. confertifolia), or winterfat (Krascheninnikovia lanata) (Brown, 1994). Blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima), greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus), black sage (A. nova), and rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus spp.) are also common and are often co-dominant or present in many Great Basin plant communities.[p. 3-5] ... The baseline Nellis AFB complex emission summary for the Nellis area and the NTTR, which includes Lincoln County, is given in Table 5-2.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The writer has previously described the Great Basin region as forming part of a great petrographic province, and later it has been shown that this province extends into Mexico, and may reach much farther northeast and southwest.... In April, 1900, James L. Butler ... on Mizpah Hill, he broke off specimens [valued] from $50 to $600 per ton in silver and gold.... Until the present season (1904) ... the fronts of many of the Basin ranges are bordered by a continuous apron of debris sloping down into the center of the valley.... The greatest of the earth's oceans is rimmed by the greatest of the earth's volcanic belts. This "circle of fire,"...-- Included U.S. Geological Survey "Professional Paper No. 42" maps are Plate III (pp. 28-9 mining claim map) & Plate XVI (pp. 116-7 geologic map with streets and buildings).
CAS TA-55-002-TAB2 (Bomblet Target Areas) consists of six separate locations [that] include Mid Target, BLU-63 area, SAC Target, South Antelope Lake, and Tomahawk Targets 1 and 2 ... CAS RG-52-007-TAML (Davis Gun Penetrator Test) consists of Davis Gun testing locations on Antelope, Brownes, Pedro, and Main Lakes, and Antelope Tuff 1, Antelope Tuff 2, Sidewinder Tuff, Myers Ridge, and Mt Helen (Nellis Range 75). The only location with land use restrictions is Antelope Lake.(for SAC Targets 1 and 2, see DOE/NV--1409)
OB-10-Hawthorne: A point west of Elko, Nevada, running southwest to Nuna, Nevada FL130-140)[ permanent dead link ]
SAC I & II Targets contained forty-five (45) 100m x 100m grids.... The boundary for the SAC Target locations encompassed an area of approximately 72 acres
In 1976, the USAF relinquished primary control of what is now Area F to the Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This land is now part of the Desert National Wildlife Reserve.
The general location of the site lies within relatively flat area, with numerous intermittent drains running through the site area and dry lakes. Several mountain ranges (Reveille and Kawich) and valleys (Stone Cabin, Hot Creek, Railroad, Tikaboo, and Sand Spring) are identified throughout the site area. Located to the south and southwest of the site location is Tonopah Test Range[page 4-13] The site has the Kawech Range on the west, the Timpahute Range and the Worthington Mountains on the east, the Belted and Papoose Ranges to the south, and the Reveille Range to the northwest [and] is part of the Sand Spring-Tikaboo Valleys ... the Tonopah Army Air Force Bombing Range site drains down from the mountains towards valley floor.[ sic ] ... On 14 January 1941, by virtue of Executive Order Number 8636, the War Department withdrew an additional 7,338.23 acres in Nevada for use as an aviation base.[p. 5-1] ... Currently, the majority of the original Tonopah Bombing Range property is owned by the Bureau of Land Management and is open to the public.[p. 5-2]
approximately 311,040 acres, more or less
Squadron Histories K-SQ-Test-4201 -HI Tonopah Test Range, 1976 ... Training Histories 224.95 1 -1 West Coast Air Corps Training Center, October 1941 ... (with map) of Las Vegas AAF and includes Tonopah range
Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base, the facility is officially called Homey Airport or Groom Lake. Details of its operations are not made public, but the USAF says that it is an open training range, and it is commonly thought to support the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. The USAF and CIA acquired the site in 1955, primarily for flight testing the Lockheed U-2 aircraft.
Nellis Air Force Base is a United States Air Force installation in southern Nevada. Nellis hosts air combat exercises such as Exercise Red Flag and close air support exercises such as Green Flag-West flown in "Military Operations Area (MOA) airspace", associated with the nearby Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR). The base also has the Combined Air and Space Operations Center-Nellis.
The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin and Range ecoregion defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United States Geological Survey. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The desert spans large portions of Nevada and Utah, and extends into eastern California. The desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America, in addition to the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts.
The Tonopah Test Range is a highly classified, restricted military installation of the United States Department of Defense, and United States Department of Energy located about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Tonopah, Nevada. It is part of the northern fringe of the Nellis Range, measuring 625 sq mi (1,620 km2). Tonopah Test Range is located about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Groom Lake, the home of the Area 51 facility.
Carson Sink is a playa in the northeastern portion of the Carson Desert in present-day Nevada, United States of America, that was formerly the terminus of the Carson River. Today the sink is fed by drainage canals of the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District. The southeastern fringe of the sink, where the canals enter, is a wetland of the Central Basin and Range ecoregion.
The Amargosa River is an intermittent waterway, 185 miles (298 km) long, in southern Nevada and eastern California in the United States. The Amargosa River is one out of two rivers located in the California portion of the Mojave Desert with perenial flow. It drains a high desert region, the Amargosa Valley in the Amargosa Desert northwest of Las Vegas, into the Mojave Desert, and finally into Death Valley where it disappears into the ground aquifer. Except for a small portion of its route in the Amargosa Canyon in California and a small portion at Beatty, Nevada, the river flows above ground only after a rare rainstorm washes the region. A 26-mile (42 km) stretch of the river between Shoshone and Dumont Dunes is protected as a National Wild and Scenic River. At the south end of Tecopa Valley the Amargosa River Natural Area protects the habitat.
State Route 375 is a 98.414-mile (158.382 km) state highway in Nye and Lincoln counties in south-central Nevada, United States. The highway stretches from State Route 318 at Crystal Springs northwest to U.S. Route 6 at Warm Springs. The route travels through mostly unoccupied desert terrain, with much of its alignment paralleling the northern edges of the Nellis Air Force Range. The road originally traversed through what is now the northern reaches of the air force range in the 1930s, when it was previously designated State Route 25A and later part of State Route 25.
The Amargosa Desert is located in Nye County in western Nevada, United States, along the California–Nevada border, comprising the northeastern portion of the geographic Amargosa Valley, north of the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.
The Panamint Valley is a long basin located east of the Argus and Slate ranges, and west of the Panamint Range in the northeastern reach of the Mojave Desert, in eastern California, United States.
Tonopah Test Range Airport, at the Tonopah Test Range is 27 NM southeast of Tonopah, Nevada, and 140 mi (230 km) northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is a major airfield with a 12,000 ft × 150 ft runway, instrument approach facilities, and nighttime illumination. The facility has over fifty hangars and an extensive support infrastructure.
The Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) is one of two military training areas at the Nellis Air Force Base Complex in Nevada and used by the United States Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base. The NTTR land area includes a "simulated Integrated Air Defense System", several individual ranges with 1200 targets, and 4 remote communication sites. The current NTTR area and the range's former areas have been used for aerial gunnery and bombing, for nuclear tests, as a proving ground and flight test area, for aircraft control and warning, and for Blue Flag, Green Flag, and Red Flag exercises.
The Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the United States Air Force Warfare Center of Air Combat Command. The unit is stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada as a tenant unit.
Tonopah Air Force Base is a Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) in the USA that was a Tonopah Basin military installation until shortly after it was designated an Air Force Base in 1948. Two of the runways still in use are maintained by Nye County, Nevada; and World War II building foundations and three hangars of the base remain at the municipal Tonopah Airport.
During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) established numerous airfields in Nevada for training pilots and aircrews of USAAF fighters and bombers.
Cactus Flat is one of the Central Nevada Desert Basins in the Cactus-Sacrobatus Watershed, for which it is an eponym. The flat is the location of the Tonopah Test Range Airport and Tonopah Test Range, a component of the Nevada Test and Training Range used for weapons testing since the 1950s. The flat is also the site of the 615 sq mi (1,590 km2) Nevada Wild Horse Range of the Nellis Air Force Range.
The Fallon Range Training Complex (FRTC) is a United States Navy military area with four separate training ranges [plus] an integrated air defense system consisting of thirty-seven real or simulated radars throughout the Dixie Valley area of Nevada. The entire FRTC is also instrumented with a Tactical Aircrew Combat Training System (TACTS).
Test and Training Range may refer to:
Hawthorne Bomb Plot is a Formerly Used Defense Site that had a Strategic Air Command (SAC) AUTOTRACK radar station during the Cold War. Operations began at a temporary RBS train site for RBS Express #2 was at the Hawthorne area in December 1961, and the 11th Radar Bomb Scoring Squadron subsequently established the fixed military installation for Radar Bomb Scoring in Babbitt, Nevada, the military housing community near the local Navy/Army depot.
Lovelock Aerial Gunnery Range was a World War II facility in two Nevada areas used for "aerial gunnery, strafing, dive bombing [and] rocket fire". By 21 November 1944, the Lovelock Range had been approved by the Secretary of the Navy to be developed for Naval Air Station Fallon, and on 13 January 1945, "Lovelock Air to Air" began when "leased under the Second War Powers Act". By February 1945, land was being acquired for the North Range in the Black Rock Desert which was 1,122 sq mi (2,910 km2) that included 64.4 sq mi (167 km2) of "Patented" land. The South Range in the Granite Springs Valley was 2,436 sq mi (6,310 km2), and in March 1945 "1920 Acres more" were added.