Ted Atlas on Getting NPS Approval for the Willows-Glen Country Airport скачать в хорошем качестве

Ted Atlas on Getting NPS Approval for the Willows-Glen Country Airport

The Mendocino Aerial Tanker Squad (MATS), the brainchild of Joe Ely in 1956, was the first air tanker squad in the U.S. Consisting of eight agricultural pilots flying their own biplanes, MATS was based at the Willows-Glenn County Airport, 80 miles north of Sacramento. Ted Atlas published an article about MATS in Aviation History magazine in 2022. He then had the idea that the airport should be a California State Landmark, as all aerial firefighting efforts, including the ubiquitous TV news shots of tankers dropping pink retardant, are the progeny of Joe Ely and those eight original pilots. A State Historian suggested that because the events at the airport had a profound effect on the nation, it should be on the National Register of Historic Places. Ted began detailed research into the history of the airport and events that happened there or were related to MATS. He got a lot of help from professionals at the California Office of Historic Preservation. An application to the State Historic Resources Commission was approved om April 21, 2023, and sent to the National Park Service, which later placed Willows-Glen airport on the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District. It is one of only twenty-eight airports in the country which are in the Register. Ted’s talk includes: The 95-year-old historic structure that he “found” hiding in plain sight. The role of the airport in the evolution of rice growing as a major crop in the Sacramento Valley How Jimmy Doolittle and his pilots came to conduct final short-field takeoff practice at the airport before leaving on their raid on Japan. The importance of the airport in the establishment and growth of the use of aircraft to fight wildlands fires The process involved in listing a place on the National Register of Historic Places. Ted Atlas, a native of San Jose and 4th-generation Californian, is a member of the Institute who researches aviation history. He was originally contacted by Frank Ely, whose father had started MATS, after Ted wrote a small Facebook article on the airport. Frank encouraged him to do more research, which led to his project to get the airport registered as a national historical landmark.