Fairfax Field

Fairfax Field was the Kansas City airport used by 1935 USMC and 1937 Army flight training centers and for a government-leased WWII airfield in Kansas of the United States Army Air Forces. The airfield was adjacent to federal land used for WWII facilities that included a North American plant for building B-25 Mitchell bombers, a B-25 modification center, and a Military Air Transport air terminal. Post-war the Army Air Base structures were used for airliner servicing by TWA and jet & auto production by General Motors, which built a 1985 automotive factory on the airfield when the "Fairfax Municipal Airport" closed.



Sweeney & Fairfax airports
Sweeney Airport was first used for a 1921 "American Legion air meet" and was subsequently mapped on a 1928 "Commerce Department Airway Bulletin". The municipal airport was located ~3 mi north of the center of Kansas City which had an Air Service facility in the 1920s.

Fairfax Field of 3000 x was named in 1928 when Sweeney Airport "was taken over by Wood Brothers Corporation" before Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh and Phil Love landed "in Love's Ryan monoplane" on 2 August 1928.) Dedicated in 1929, the facility was operated by the "Fairfax Airport Company", and the 1st Fairfax passenger service aircraft of the Universal Aviation Corporation was a Fokker Super Universal cabin plane (5 passengers).  The Southwest Air Service Express airline scheduled flights from "Fairfax Air Port" to Dallas/Ft Worth in March 1929, and a "Travelair six-passenger carrier of Central Air Lines crashed on approach to Fairfax in January 1930.  By 1933 a terminal and hangars were in place and the field had been lengthened to 5400 x with airlines including American, Braniff, and US Airways.

Aviation training
A naval reserve air base was established at Fairfax Field in 1935 (a USN squadron and a USMC sq were established July 12), and in 1937 Army Captain Wisehart was the "unit intructor" at th Fairfax "army reserve base" with Douglass O-48A observation planes, and by 1938 the airport had 4 runways, including one 2700 ft long, (the Eddie Fisher Flying Service provided lessons.) In charge of Fairfax's "U.S. Naval Reserve aviation base" during 1940 was Lieutenant Commander W. B. Ault, and the base had a 30 day course for pre-flight training. The "Marine Air Flight Program" established by 1 September 1940 at Fairfax's Navy Elimination Air Base (E-base) used "a physical and mental examination…ten hours of dual instruction…check rides and a fifteen-minute solo flight" for screening candidates to become Naval Aviation Cadets. After a Fairfax "naval flying cadet… crashed into the Missouri river two miles northwest of the Fairfax air base" on 16 June 1942, Fairfax's naval aviation training moved in July to the United States Naval Aviation Reserve Base at Olathe KS.

North American Aviation's president had inspected the field for a WWII aircraft plant by December 1940 when the US government approved construction of a Kansas City production plant for Army B-25 and Navy PBJ-1D bombers. Survey work began in December, and the city of Kansas City, Kansas, purchased the airport in February. The United States Army Air Forces leased the Fairfax Airport from the city and expanded the 4 civilian runways with concrete of 150 feet in width and 185,000 square yards of parking apron. The government also purchased an alfalfa field of 75 acre for the plant and for right-of-way to the airfield.

1941 Kansas City B-25 plant
Air Force Plant NC (NAA-K company ID, Government Assembly Plant No. 2, facility ID #2503) was a "government-owned, contractor-operated" plant of North American Aviation for which groundbreaking was on 8 March 1941. Contract W535 AC 19341 for the initial 1200 B-25D (NA-87) bombers was approved on June 28, 1941; production began in December 1941, and Fairfax's 1st B-25D was accepted by the USAAF in February 1942 (the first production block was B-25D-1). North American provided parts for the first 100 Fairfax B-25Ds came from AFP #09 in Inglewood, California, and the company had a test flight office at Fairfax.


 * Modification Center: The Modification Center at Fairfax Field was built from May–October 1942 for altering B-25s until "the time the factory [could] incorporate the change into production" e.g., variations needed by the British and Russians.  The center was a dual hangar with a timber frame built on the southeast edge of Fairfax Airport, and some alterations were performed on the airport apron. A west extension and several outbuildings were added to the modification center and in October 1944, it became an adjunct to the final assembly line.  Circa October 1945, "Transcontinental and Western Air leased the modification center" for servicing airliners, (the initial lease expired in 1950).  TWA used the former modification center until the Great Flood of 1951 (the city built the new Mid-Continent Airport for the TWA Kansas City Overhaul Base west of the city), and the modification center was razed shortly after March 1985.


 * High bay: The "high bay" was an expansion of the Fairfax B-25 factory building for a 1942 North American contract (never implemented) to build 200 B-29 Superfortress bombers at Fairfax along with the B-25 Mitchell. The expansion began in July 1942 on the east side of the bomber plant and added 350 x of floor space with twice the height of the existing final assembly bay (completed in March 1943).

The Fairfax plant's employment peaked at 24,329 in October 1943, and the 1st Fairfax B-25J was accepted in December 1943. D model production ended in March 1944 with block 35 (B-25D-35-NA) and after North American's California ended B-25 production on July 7, 1944; Fairfax was the sole source for B-25 Mitchells and set a January 1945 record with AAF acceptance of 315 Fairfax aircraft. Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star production planning included a February 1945 visit by two Lockheed representatives to Fairfax, and in April Lockheed shipped a P-80 to the bomber plant for study. Work began on building P-80 jigs, space was cleared for P-80 production in the high bay, and the B-25 assembly line was shortened.

B-25J production scheduled through December 1945 was terminated August 15, the day after V-J day. Fairfax had built 2,290 B-24Ds (152 Navy PBJ-1D variants) and 4,318 B-25Js—more than half of the 10,000 WWII B-25s. The federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation set up a depot in the Fairfax district to liquidate war surplus not sent to depots or elsewhere for government use (reusable materials like aluminum and steel were reclamed.) Seventy-two incomplete but flyable B-25Js were sold to the public.

Military units
The 2d Ferrying Squadron of the 5th Ferrying Group was moved by Air Transport Command from Dallas Love Field to Fairfax on 15 April 1943, and the squadron ferried out 157 B-25s during May. Of 1,881 deliveries in 1943 by the Ground Ferrying Squadron all but 129 were B-25's, but at the end of that year pilots from Fairfax began ferrying B-26 Marauders from the Omaha modification center and B-24 Liberators from a St. Paul facility. From May-Sep 1944 a detachment of Women Airforce Service Pilots was at Fairfax.


 * Technical Training: The 76th AAF Technical Training Detachment activated on 4 February 1943 (designated 5 October) administered a 6 week hydraulics course for AAF mechanics under the direction of the Aircraft Accessories Corporation. About 300 students were admitted before the school was closed in October as a duplicate of a Chanute Field course.  The 81st AAF Technical Training Detachment activated 22 February 1943 and designated, effective 30 August, to supervise apprentice crew chiefs at the Modification Center. January AAF policy was for each mechanic selected as a crew chief to be assigned an aircraft as it left the factory, review its modifications at the center, and deploy with it to the field unit. B-25 modifications only took a week until the B-25G gunship modifications for Pacific War anti-shipping missions, which took 2–3 months.  Peak enrollment was 296 mechanics on 27 June, and the apprenticeship program was abandoned (the detachment inactivated on 31 October 1943.)  In 1945, Kansas City had the 1st of the 2AF Radar Bomb Scoring (RBS) sites (cf. the 2nd site at Dallas) which used an SCR-584 radar for evaluating bomber training ) and became a detachment of the Colorado Springs's 206th AAFBU in July, Later designated a 10th RBS Squadron detachment in 1954, the unit scored B-36 bomber runs in 1953, the 1955 SAC Bombing and Navigation Competition, and the 1957 "Operation Longshot".

33d Ferrying Group
The 33d Ferrying Group was designated on 1 April 1944 from the 2d Ferrying Squadron, which had been separated from the 5th Group on 1 January 1944 (393 officers and 578 enlisted men at the end of 1944). From Fairfax the 33d delivered 6,202 aircraft to CONUS bases and 251 abroad. On 22 September 1944 the 33d Ferrying Group began daily scheduled Military Air Transport (MAT) flights with military cargo/passengers to Minneapolis and Omaha (2 more daily flights were later added.) On 9 November 1944 the 33d Group furnished plane and crew to fly Senator Harry S. Truman from Fairfax to Washington for ceremonies following his election as Vice-President, and in early 1945 the 33d controlled ten operating locations.. During the Fairfax transition to P-80 production, the 33d Ferrying Group was discontinued and for ferrying, Fairfax became an operating location of Rosecrans Army Airfield on 15 April 1945 with its pilots traveling to Fairfax for sorties.


 * Air freight terminal: Military Air Transport moved an air freight terminal to Fairfax on 2 March 1945 from Kansas City, Missouri, and had 362 personnel in June, the largest operating location in the division. During July, 1,044 military transports used the field (e.g., President Truman for visits to Independence, Missouri.  By November the Topeka Army Airfield to the west had been chosen for a central MAT flight facility, and the Air Transport Command operating location at Fairfax was discontinued by 6 December 1945 (9 C-47s and 80 pilots/co-pilots transferred to Topeka.)

Fairfax Air Force Base
Fairfax Air Force Base was the military installation's designation when President Truman's Constellation used the airfield in August 1948 after 2 reserve units had been established at Fairfax Field. The 4101st Army Air Force Base Unit (Reserve Training) had been activated at Fairfax on 12 July 1946 (redesignated 2472d AF Reserve Training Center on 28 August 1948) and at the beginning of USAF planning, Fairfax activated the 564th Bombardment Squadron on 6 January 1947 which sent 127 pilots to 1948 summer camp. Iin October 1948, 37 Air Force Reserve planes at Fairfax flew 1,844 hours and in 1949, the 564th was replaced by the 442d Troop Carrier Wing (activated 27 June). Despite a 1948 plan for the base to "be withdrawn from surplus", in "October 1949 the U.S. Air Force terminated its lease on Fairfax Airport, and the city of Kansas City, Kansas, regained control of the facility". On 22 May 1950, Fairfax's 2472d Center and 442d Wing moved to Naval Air Technical Training Center Olathe.

Central Air Defense Force headquarters
The USAF's Central Air Defense Force (CADF) was activated with headquarters at Fairfax Air Force Base on 1 March 1951, on 24 April the Central Army Antiaircraft Command was "established with HQ at Kansas City" (organized 1 May 1951), and on 1 July the USAF 35th Air Division was activated at Kansas City (moved to Dobbins AFB in September). The 4610th Air Base Squadron evacuated due to a fire during the Great Flood of 1951 ("4610 Air Base Group" in 1952). Two Air Divisions (34th at Kirtland AFB & 29th (Great Falls) Air Divisions were reassigned to the CADF on 1 March 1953 when the latter was "expanded to include North and South Dakota and Nebraska" (the 4676th Air Defense Group began flying F-86 Sabres from Fairfax at the end of 1953.) The 1953 Fairfax AFB F-94 crash occurred when Lockheed F-94C-1-LO Starfire number 50-969 departed Fairfax for Scott AFB but on attempting a return, struck a dike short of the runway and killed the pilot and radar operator.  From 18 December 1953-1 March 1954 the 326th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was assigned to Fairfax, and the 1954 Kansas City F-84 crash near the city's business district killed the pilot and 3 residents after takeoff from Fairfax AFB. In early 1954 after the 24 February Eisenhower statement for the "New Look" policy, Air Defense Command was reorganized under Continental Air Defense Command and all Fairfax ADC units moved nearby to Grandview AFB, Missouri, and Fairfax became a general aviation airport.

Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac plant
Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac plant of General Motors adjacent to Fairfax Air Force Base, was initiated with the "November 7, 1945 [announcement] that General Motors had signed a five-year lease for the former bomber plant" (purchased by GM in 1960.) "The reconverted factory finished its first automobile in June 1946", and in 1953 when the F-84F Thunderflash fighter was unveiled, its assembly line was in the same 53 acre building as the automotive production line. General Motors produced 599 F-84Fs at the Fairfax plant, and this was the only time that aircraft & auto production have been run down parallel lines simultaneously.

Fairfax Municipal Airport
Fairfax Municipal Airport (KCK) was established for general aviation in early 1954. It was the July 1955 landing site of a TWA DC-3 that "had just taken off from Fairfax" before a collision with a Cessna of Baker's Flying Service. The Cessna was destroyed. The airport was added to the USGS Geographic Names Information System on 13 October 1978, and the airport's last flight departed on March 31, 1985. General Motors Fairfax Assembly Plant was completed in 1985 on the runways of Fairfax Field, and production at the former bomber plant ceased in May 1987 (razed in 1989).