Delano Municipal Airport is six miles southwest of Delano, in

Kern County Kern County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield. Kern County compris ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States. Most U.S. airports use the same three-letter

location identifier A location identifier is a symbolic representation for the name and the location of an airport, navigation aid, or weather station, and is used for staffed air traffic control facilities in air traffic control, telecommunications, computer program ...

for the FAA and

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...

, but Delano Municipal Airport is DLO to the FAA and has no IATA code.Great Square Mapper: KDLO - Delano, California (Delano Municipal Airport)
/ref>

Facilities

Delano Municipal Airport covers and has one

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

runway (14/32) measuring . In the year ending January 23, 2006 the airport had 19,000 aircraft operations, average 52 per day, all

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

. 44 aircraft are based at this airport: 68% single engine, 5% multi-engine and 27%

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 ...

History

Delano Airport opened in April 1940. It was built by the federal government with monies appropriated by Congress for Development of Landing Areas for National Defense. It was built by the Civil Aeronautics Administration. In late 1943 the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

acquired usage rights to the airport. It was placed under the jurisdiction of the IV Fighter Command. The

481st Night Fighter Operational Training Group The 481st Night Fighter Operational Training Group (481 NFOTG) was a unit of the United States Army Air Forces. It was inactivated on 31 March 1944 at Hammer Field, California. The group was the primary night fighter Operational Training Unit (O ...

(NFOTG) used the facility, named Delano Army Airfield, as part of the Army Air Forces Night Fighter School which had transferred from

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

Hammer Field Fresno Yosemite International Airport is a joint military–public airport in Fresno, California, United States. It is the primary commercial airport for the San Joaquin Valley and three national parks: Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon. It ...

, California. Delano was used as an auxiliary training airfield. The school operated a combination of modified

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals * Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking * Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil ...

A-20 Havoc The Douglas A-20 Havoc (company designation DB-7) is an American light bomber, attack aircraft, Intruder (air combat), night intruder, night fighter, and reconnaissance aircraft of World War II. Designed to meet an Army Air Corps requirement for ...

s for night fighter operations, designated P-70, and new prototype

YP-61 Black Widow The Northrop P-61 Black Widow is a twin-engine United States Army Air Forces fighter aircraft of World War II. It was the first operational U.S. warplane designed specifically as a night fighter. Named for the North American spider ''Latrodect ...

purpose-built night fighters. Between 31 March and 15 June 1944, the

426th Night Fighter Squadron 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is a square number, the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. Evolution of the Hi ...

trained at Delano; the 548th Night Fighter Squadron between June and September 1944. In addition, flights of P-61s from the 427th, 547th, 549th and 550th Night Fighter Squadrons moved in and out of Delano AAF during 1944 as part of their training prior to being deployed to combat units, primarily in the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

and CBI theaters. In December 1944, the 481st NFOTG was inactivated as part of an AAF reorganization. Delano Field was transferred over to the jurisdiction of

Air Technical Service Command An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere ...

on 10 December. It was placed on standby status and the airport was only used for emergency, being under the control of Hammer Field. With the end of the war, the base was declared excess to requirements and returned to civil control. Delano has had almost no scheduled airline flights, but did appear in the OAG circa 1969.

References

External links

* {{USAAF 4th Air Force World War II 1940 establishments in California Airports in Kern County, California Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in California Airports established in 1940

Facilities

History

See also

References

External links