Narsarsuaq Army Airfield
   HOME





Narsarsuaq Army Airfield
Bluie West One, later known as Narsarsuaq Air Base and Narsarsuaq Airport, was built on a glacial moraine at what is now the village of Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland. Construction by the United States Army began in June 1941. The first aircraft landed there in January 1942, as a link in the North Atlantic air ferry route in World War II. The base had a peak population of about 4,000 American servicemen, and it is estimated that some 10,000 aircraft landed there en route to the war in Europe and North Africa. Soon after the United States entered the war, the War Department decided to deploy Major General Carl Spaatz's Eighth Air Force to Britain, putting the North Atlantic ferry route facilities constructed by the Corps to an early test. Radioing from Bluie West 1, while crossing the Atlantic in mid-June 1942, Spaatz ordered the movement to begin. The P-38 and P-39 fighters, piloted by combat crews who had been given special training in long-distance flying, were ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Narsarsuaq
Narsarsuaq (lit. ''Great Plain'';''Facts and History of Narsarsuaq'', Narsarsuad Tourist Information old spelling: ''Narssarssuaq'') is a settlement in the Kujalleq municipality in southern Greenland. It had 123 inhabitants in 2020. There is a thriving tourism industry in and around Narsarsuaq, whose attractions include a great diversity of wildlife, gemstones, tours to glaciers, and an airfield museum. History Narsarsuaq is located within the Eastern Settlement of the Norse colonization of the Americas, Greenlandic Norse; the Brattahlíð farm of Erik the Red established in 985 was located on the opposite bank of Tunulliarfik Fjord, where the modern settlement of Qassiarsuk is situated. In 1941 the United States built an air base at Narsarsuaq code-named Bluie West One (BW1). (''Bluie'' was the Allied military code name for Greenland.) Thousands of planes used BW1 as a stepping stone on their way from the aircraft factories in North America to the battlegrounds of Europe. A 600- ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Maine
Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and northwest, and shares a maritime border with Nova Scotia. Maine is the largest U.S. state, state in New England by total area, nearly larger than the combined area of the remaining five states. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, 50 U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 12th-smallest by area, the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 9th-least populous, the List of U.S. states by population density, 13th-least densely populated, and the most rural. Maine's List of capitals in the United States, capital is Augusta, Maine, Augusta, and List of municipalities in Maine, its most populous c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

North Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for separating the New World of the Americas (North America and South America) from the Old World of Afro-Eurasia (Africa, Asia, and Europe). Through its separation of Afro-Eurasia from the Americas, the Atlantic Ocean has played a central role in the development of human society, globalization, and the histories of many nations. While the Norse were the first known humans to cross the Atlantic, it was the expedition of Christopher Columbus in 1492 that proved to be the most consequential. Columbus's expedition ushered in an age of exploration and colonization of the Americas by European powers, most notably Portugal, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom. From the 16th to 19th centuries, the Atlantic Ocean was the center of both an epo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of short take-off and landing (STOL) or short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft cannot perform without a runway. The Focke-Wulf Fw 61 was the first successful, practical, and fully controllable helicopter in 1936, while in 1942, the Sikorsky R-4 became the first helicopter to reach full-scale mass production, production. Starting in 1939 and through 1943, Igor Sikorsky worked on the development of the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, VS-300, which over four iterations, became the basis for modern helicopters with a single main rotor and a single tail rotor. Although most earlier ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Jet Fighter
Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield permits bombers and attack aircraft to engage in tactical and strategic bombing of enemy targets, and helps prevent the enemy from doing the same. The key performance features of a fighter include not only its firepower but also its high speed and maneuverability relative to the target aircraft. The success or failure of a combatant's efforts to gain air superiority hinges on several factors including the skill of its pilots, the tactical soundness of its doctrine for deploying its fighters, and the numbers and performance of those fighters. Many modern fighter aircraft also have secondary capabilities such as ground attack and some types, such as fighter-bombers, are designed from the outset for dual roles. O ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Refuelling Station
Refueling or Refuelling may refer to: *Filling station, for refueling motor vehicles *Refueling and Overhaul in the United States Navy *Reactor refueling *Aerial refueling *Bunkering, the refueling of ships * Refueling aircraft at airports See also * Nuclear reprocessing Nuclear reprocessing is the chemical separation of fission products and actinides from spent nuclear fuel. Originally, reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing nuclear weapons. With commercialization of nuclear power, the ...
* Spent nuclear fuel {{Disambig ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term ''Cold war (term), cold war'' is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and Nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, Economic sanctions, embargoes, and sports diplomacy. After the end of World War II in 1945, during which the US and USSR had been allies, the USSR installed satellite state, satellite governments in its occupied territories in Eastern Europe and N ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Fate Is The Hunter
''Fate Is the Hunter'' is a 1961 memoir by aviation writer Ernest K. Gann. It describes his years working as a pilot from the 1930s to 1950s, starting at American Airlines in Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s when civilian air transport was in its infancy, moving onto wartime flying in C-54s, C-87s, and Lockheed Lodestars, and finally at Matson Navigation's short-lived upstart airline and various post-World War II "nonscheduled" airlines in Douglas DC-4s. On its publication, in reviewing the book, Martin Caidin wrote that Gann's reminiscences "stand excitingly as individual chapter-stories, but the author has woven them superbly into a lifetime of flight." Roger Bilstein, in a history of flight, says that of books that discuss airline operations from the pilot's point of view, "few works of this genre equal E. K. Gann's 'Fate Is the Hunter,' which strikingly evokes the atmosphere of air transport flying during the 1930s." In 2019, playwright David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fjord
In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the northern and southern hemispheres. Norway's coastline is estimated to be long with its nearly 1,200 fjords, but only long excluding the fjords. Formation A true fjord is formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by ice segregation and abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. According to the standard model, glaciers formed in pre-glacial valleys with a gently sloping valley floor. The work of the glacier then left an overdeepened U-shaped valley that ends abruptly at a valley or trough end. Such valleys are fjords when flooded by the ocean. Thresholds above sea level create freshwater lakes. Glacial melting is accompanied by the rebounding of Earth's crust as the ice load and eroded sediment is removed (also called isostasy or gla ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Runway
In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, grass, soil, dirt, gravel, ice, sand or road salt, salt). Runways, taxiways and Airport apron, ramps, are sometimes referred to as "tarmac", though very few runways are built using Tarmacadam, tarmac. Takeoff and landing areas defined on the surface of water for seaplanes are generally referred to as waterways. Runway lengths are now International Civil Aviation Organization#Use of the International System of Units, commonly given in meters worldwide, except in North America where feet are commonly used. History In 1916, in a World War I war effort context, the first concrete-paved runway was built in Clermont-Ferrand in France, allowing local company Michelin to manufacture Bréguet Aviation military aircraft. In January 1919, aviation p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Marston Mat
Marston Mat, more properly called pierced (or perforated) steel planking (PSP), is standardized, perforated steel matting material developed by the United States at the Waterways Experiment Station shortly before World War II, primarily for the rapid construction of temporary runways and landing strips (also misspelled as Marsden matting). The nickname came from Marston, North Carolina, adjacent to Camp Mackall airfield where the material was first used. Description Pierced steel planking (or pressed steel planking, named after the manufacturing process) consisted of steel strips with punched lightening holes in it. These holes were in rows, and a formation of ''U''-shaped channels between the holes. Hooks were formed along one long edge and slots along the other long edge so that adjacent mats could be connected. The short edges were cut straight with no holes or hooks. To achieve lengthwise interlocking, the mats were laid in a staggered pattern. The hooks were usually he ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Kangerlussuaq
Kangerlussuaq (; ; ) is a settlement in western Greenland in the Qeqqata municipalities of Greenland, municipality located at the head of the Kangerlussuaq Fjord, fjord of the same name. It was Greenland's main air transport hub and the site of Greenland's largest commercial airport until the new airport opened at Nuuk on 28 November 2024. The airport dates from American settlement during and after World War II, when the site was known as Bluie West-8 and then Sondrestrom Air Base. The Kangerlussuaq area is also home to Greenland's most diverse terrestrial fauna, including muskoxen, caribou, and gyrfalcons. The settlement's economy and population of 508 is almost entirely reliant on the airport and tourist industry. It is the only town in Greenland which is not located on the proper ocean, being situated at the end of a 160 km long fjord, although it still has a coastline on the ocean. Geography Kangerlussuaq occupies an Alluvium, alluvial flatland on the far end of the 1 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]