Historic California Posts, Camps, Stations and Airfields

Point Cabrillo Radar Simulator Annex

 

 

 

US Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District History (1993)

The Point Cabrillo Radar Simulator Annex is located 2 miles north of Mendocino and 2 miles south of Casper, in Mendocino County, California See attached location maps (Figure 1 and Figure 2).

In 1962, 4.4 acres were transferred by permit from the Department of the Treasury (US Coast Guard) to the Department of the Army who through the Corps of Engineers acted as an agent for the US Air Force. The permitted improvements included a radar tower, septic tank, and the construction or modification of structures and utilities.

 

The Department of the Air Force was then granted use of the acreage by means of a license. The site, a portion of the US Coast Guard's Cabrillo Light Station, was used by the Air Force as a radar simulator facility for electronic warfare training. Students flying in Convair ET-29s were taught both direction finding and jamming techniques. The ET-29D was an electronic warfare training aircraft used in the late sixties at Mather AFB, CA. Missions were flown mainly up and down the California coast, where the students would have ample opportunity to log direction finding (D/F) cuts on various ground-based radars. This was the passive phase of the training. The active phase consisted of jamming runs against various approved tracking radars. However, most of the time was spent in the classroom learning about foreign radars and their capabilities. The 453rd Flying Training Squadron operated a detachment at Point Cabrillo.

 

 

Insignia of the 453rd Flying Training Squadron, Mather AFB

The 4.4 acres were retransferred to the Department of the Treasury on 15 July 1974 by a use permit. Conditions of the permit required that the site be restored to the conditions that existed at issuance of permit; however, the removal of the septic tank and restoration of the garage stall were not required at the time of the transfer. There were no resettlement costs involved in this installation

 

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Updated 8 February 2016