HAFB Museum Tour - focus on WWII Wendover Airfield

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Although you may have toured Hill Air Force Base Museum before, the purpose of this tour is to gain information around the World War II era activities at Wendover Airfield, now essentially a ghost town.

Our submission for an AIAA Historic Aerospace Nomination (similar to the already dedicated IEEE Milestone for Computer Graphics and the currently submitted IEEE Milestone Proposal on Cosmic Rays now in adjudication) is in preparation. Historical records are sparse, and the hope is to learn more from museum docents and each other. 

We know 20,000 people were stationed at Wendover Airfield in 1945.  They trained P47 fighter pilots and developed tactics for heavy bombers  (including nuclear bomb equipped B29 crews). The recent film "Oppenheimer" provided just a glimpse of the monumental effort of the Manhattan Project and did not touch the even bigger effort to design the B29 bomber that could cross immense distances flying above defending fighters. Wendover also tested the first US cruise missiles, the first air-to-air missiles , and the first glide bombs. Performance shortcomings of these programs urged rapid development of modern electronics guidance systems.

Students and young engineers will likely be shocked at the speed at which complex systems were developed and fielded under no excuses wartime pressure and without popular management theories embraced today. These past successful response to technical challenges and life hardships should provide incentive for us today.

 

RSVP required.

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We will split into groups of 15 for tour by a docent.

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