North Island California

Navy Airport North Island

The North Island was put into operation in 1917 as a marine ventilation unit. Formerly named the San Diego Navy Aerodrome until 1955, the centre was officially recognized as the "birthplace of Navy Aviation" by a decision of the House Armed Services Committee on August 15, 1963. The North Island was then an unpopulated sandy area.

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, it was used for equestrian and hunter's purposes by the visitors of J. D. Spreckles' Resort Hôtel, now the renowned Del Coronado Hôtel. The North Island derives its name from the initial geographical location. Until the beginning of the twentieth century the bay was called North Coronado Island, as the Spanish Bay divided it from South Coronado Island until the beginning of the 1940s.

The North and South Coronado Islands were bought by a real estate company in 1886 to become a housing area. Southern Coronado was to become the city of Coronado, but Northern Coronado was never made. In 1914, the then unfamiliar airplane manufacturer Glenn Martin took off and presented his push plane over the island with a plane that contained the first skydiving in the San Diego area.

Further North Island aeronautics landmarks were the first floatplane in 1911, the first air-to-air refuelling and the first non-stop trans-continental mission in 1923. Glenn Curtiss also coached the first group of Korean pilots at his island pilot training center before the station went into operation.

One of them was Lieutenant C. Yamada, who later became notorious as chief of the Japanese naval air force in World War II. The Congress took possession of the country in 1917 and two airports were put into operation on its sands. Charles A. Lindbergh's May 1927 trip from New York to Paris was one of the most celebrated in all time.

The Spirit of St. Louis was constructed in San Diego, and his trip began on the North Island on May 9, 1927, when he began the first stage of his trans-atlantic itinerary. Since the North and South Coronado Islands were divided by the Spanish Bay, the Air Station's front door was constructed over a dam along today's McCain Blvd.

As we approached Flag Circle from the entrance door, the last tile rooftop on the lefthand side was the gatekeeper's house, as the Army Air Corps insignias show, a couple of wing halved by a single-blade prop and cut into the blinds. As early as 1928, the ancestors of today's "Blue Angels", the trihedral "Sea Hawks" of the VF-6B, the "Felix the Cat" squadrons, thrilled the audience with flying displays.

Although the North Island training schedule of US air force pilot s is like a Who's Who of air travel, America was not the only nation to emerge from the early20s. The first commander of the USN bases, Lieutenant Commander Earl W. Spencer Jr. added a certain fame to the North Island.

LANGLEY was home ported to NAS San Diego in 1924, which began continued use of the North Island as the home base for Pacific Fleet Carrier, and the North Island took on the task of delivering services and staff instruction for these new fleet assets. Throughout the Second World War, the Spanish Bay was full of excavators from San Diego Bay.

Part of the North and South Island border, this new territory has become the main site of today's administration and leisure complex. The North Island was an important US mainland force during the Great Depression. Among these were over a doze of carrier ships, the Coast Guard, the Army, Marines and Seabees.

Coronado became the home of most of the airplane manufacturers and members of the huge military bases that were on duty around the clock. 2. The first night flight landings were carried out by USS VALLEY FORGE, an air vehicle located on the North Island in 1950. There have been many other important occurrences on the North Island, including:

In 1969 the Coronado Bay Bridge was opened; in February 1974 the first S-3 Viking Squadron got up; in January 1983 the HSL-41 got the first SH-60B chopper; in November 1985 the first C-2 Greyhound airplane arrived at NASNI.