England Air Force Base Radar Site

 (1955-1963) - A Cold War U.S. Air Force Radar Station established just after the Korean War. Located near Alexandria in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. Initially assigned a Permanent ID of M-125. Closed in 1963.

History
Constructed in 1955. By August 1955 all the towers had been constructed and were awaiting installation of electronic equipment. The site became operational in December 1955 as England Air Force Base Radar Site manned by the 653rd Aircraft Control & Warning (AC&W) Squadron.

Initial equipment included the TPS-1D search radar, MPS-14 and TPS-10D height-finder radars.

Manual System Operation
In the fall of 1954, the 653rd AC&W Squadron moved to England Air Force Base Radar Site, assigned to the 33rd Air Division (Defense) (33rd ADD). Headquartered at Oklahoma City Air Force Station. The 33rd ADD provided command and control over subordinate radar stations from the Oklahoma City Manual Direction Center P-86 located on Oklahoma City Air Force Station.

Closure
Orders to close down the radar site and the gap filler radars were received on 26 April 1963. The England AFB Radar Site and the 653rd AC&W Squadron were deactivated as/of 23 Apr 1963. Operations ceased on 1 May 1963 but a small compound and the FPS-20 search radar was turned over to the FAA and the site later resumed operation as the Alexandria FAA Radar Site.

Alexandria FAA Radar Site
On 1 Jul 1964, the FAA took over the USAF FPS-20A search radar and tower on the former USAF radar site along with a small compound surrounding the tower. On 6 Jun 1965, they had completed the changes necessary to connect the radar to the FAA ARTCC system and they began 24-hour operation with the legacy FPS-20 radar.

By 1990 the site was equipped with an FPS-20A search radar and a CD-2A Common Digitizer. The Alexandria CD-2A was scheduled to receive an upgrade kit to implement three level weather data processing in July 1992.

CARSR Radar
On 4 May 2012, the upgrade to a Common Air-Route Surveillance Radar (CARSR) configuration was complete. At the time of conversion, the search radar set was reported as an FPS-20A with a 1561 Antenna.

Gap Fillers
The England AFB radar site was responsible for the maintenance of three remote unattended gap-filler radar sites. The England AFB radar site gap-filler radars were located at Delhi, LA, Lake Charles GFA, LA and Weeks Island, LA. One additional gap-filler was planned at Heflin, LA but was never built.

Current Status
Active FAA radar site.

See Also:
 * Houston ARTCC
 * SAGE System
 * US Radar Sets
 * Permanent System Radar Sites
 * Permanent Radar System Direction Centers
 * Oklahoma City Manual Direction Center P-86

Sources:
 * , page 98.
 * , page 118.

Links:
 * Radomes - England Air Force Base Radar Site
 * Wikipedia - England Air Force Base