Kirksville Air Force Station
Kirksville Air Force Station (1952-1968) - A Cold War Air Force Radar Station first established in 1952 near Sublette, Adair County, Missouri. Initially named Sublette Air Force Station, renamed Kirksville Air Force Station after the location on 1 Dec 1953. Initially assigned a Permanent ID of P-64, later a Sage ID of Z-64. Abandoned by the Air Force in 1968 with a small area reserved by the FAA for Kirksville FAA Radar Site.
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Kirksville FAA Radar Site 2008, former USAF LRR Radar Operations building in the foreground.
History
Established in 1952 and became operational in April 1952 as Sublette Air Force Station manned by the 790th AC&W Squadron. The station initially had both a Ground-Control Intercept (GCI) and an early warning mission. The early warning mission involved tracking and identifying all aircraft entering their airspace while the GCI mission involved guiding Air Force interceptors to any identified enemy aircraft. Controllers at the station vectored fighter aircraft at the correct course and speed to intercept enemy aircraft using voice commands via ground-to-air radio.
Initial equipment included two FPS-10 search radars. Two FPS-6A height-finder radars were installed in 1958 replacing one of the FPS-10s.
This configuration established the requirements for the transition to the SAGE System operation.
SAGE System Transition
The transition of the manual GCI system to the automated SAGE system began with the installation of the FST-2 coordinate data transmitter and search radar upgrades. The FST-2 equipment digitized the radar returns and transmitted the digital returns to the SAGE direction center. Under the SAGE System, interceptor aircraft were directed to their targets by the direction center computers and controllers, greatly reducing the need for local controllers and equipment at every radar station.
The FST-2 was a very large digital system using vacuum tube technology. Over 6900 vacuum tubes were used in each FST-2 requiring 21 air-conditioned cabinets, 40 tons of air conditioning, 43.5 kva of prime power, and usually a large new addition to the operations building. The FST-2B modification added two more cabinets but with newer solid-state (transistor) technology to process coded responses from aircraft transponders.
SAGE System Operation
| Assigned | Direction Center | Sector | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1 Jun 1959 - 1 Apr 1966 | Truax SAGE Direction Center DC-07 | Chicago Air Defense Sector | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 Apr 1966 - 1 Dec 1967 | Truax SAGE Direction Center DC-07 | 20th Air Division | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 Dec 1967 - 8 Sep 1968 | Sioux City SAGE Direction Center DC-22 | 30th Air Division.
The site began operation as a SAGE site in 1959 initially feeding the Truax SAGE Direction Center DC-07. The remaining FPS-10 was replaced with a FPS-7 search radar in 1963. With the impending closure of the Truax SAGE Direction Center DC-07 in December 1967, control was shifted to the Sioux City SAGE Direction Center DC-22. That direction center was slated to close in September 1968 and the Kirksville AFS closed at the same time. Gap FillersKirksville AFS was responsible for the maintenance of one remote unattended gap-filler radar site. The unattended gap filler sites were placed in locations where the main search radar lacked coverage. These sites were equipped with short range FPS-14 or FPS-18 search radars and FST-1 Coordinate Data transmitters that sent digitized radar target data to a SAGE direction center and to the main radar site. Both the radar set and the FST-1 were dual channel to increase site up time. Maintenance teams were dispatched for regularly scheduled maintenance or when fault indicators on the FSW-1 remote monitoring equipment suggested the site had problems. The FSW-1 also allowed remote operation of specific functions such as channel changes for the radar and for the FST-1, it also allowed remote operation of the diesel generators at the gap filler site. The Kirksville AFS gap-filler radar was located at Washington, Iowa.
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