Wheelus AIr Force Base

[Al]

Ken Lawson and I have been working on a couple of new projects over the last few months, both originally started to support Ken’s recreation of the C-121 flight to Dhahran which ended in tragedy. The two sceneries we have been working on are Lajes AB (LPLA)in the Azores and Wheelus AB (HLLM) in Libya, both stops on the way to Dhahran from the original starting point of McGuire AFB.

This particular post will cover the Wheelus AB. Wheelus served many purposes, as a MATS station, as a Reflex base hosting various bombers at different times for 90 day rotations and as a gunnery and bombing training facility supporting many USAFEurope Squadrons which flew in for 30 days to practice live gunnery and bomb training exercises at the nearby El-Uotia Gunnery range which is also included in the scenery. Traffic for all for CC traffic years are provided each with a mix of visiting squadrons and aircraft types. It can get to be a pretty colorful place if you install all the aircraft types provided for (but it is your choice as to how much you install).

MATS and other non-fighter types are represented as well such as the 58th Air Rescue squadron with their SA-16 Albatrosses and H-19 Helicopters.

The white area you see is actually an active salt mining operation by the local Libyans which Ken has built scenery around.

The B-29s were part of the MATS 580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing that was reassigned to Wheelus from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The Wing (later Group) flew special operations (covert) in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Southwest Asia until being inactivated in 1956.

MATS Terminal Area. Ccustom tower by Dan French. Custom Terminal along with many other buildings by Ken Lawson


Fighter Squadrons visiting Wheelus for gunnery training by year. Remember FS9 can only represent one week of flight plans so whereas in real life only one or two units from the wings covered below would be at Wheelus for a month-long rotation of weapons training, as you can see below, we are offering multiple Wings of fighters at the same time in any given year for variety and to cover as many as possible, those using Wheelus for training during the period covered.

1955
431st TFS F86D Host Stationed there in 54-57 before transfer to Zargosa Spain
525th FIS F86D Landstuhl Air Base (later Ramstein Air Base)
526th FIS F86D Landstuhl Air Base (later Ramstein Air Base)
All three custom paints by DeltaDart



1957
20th TFW 79th TFS F-100D Stationed RAF Woodbridge
20th FFW 77th TFS F-100D STationed RAF Wethersfield
48th TFW 492nd TFS F-100D STationed Chaumont-Semoutiers AB, France
48th TFW 493rd TFS F-100D STationed Chaumont-Semoutiers AB, France
36th TFW 32nd TFS F-100C Stationed Soesterberg Air Base, Netherlands



1959
20th TFW 79th TFS F-100D Stationed RAF Woodbridge
86th FIW 525th FIS F-102 Stationed Bitburg AB, Germany
86th FIW 526th FIS F-89D Stationed Ramstein AB, Germany
49th TFS 7th TFS F100D Stationed Spangdahlem AB Germany
49th TFS 8th TFS F100D Stationed Spangdahlem AB Germany
49th TFS 9th TFS F100D Stationed Spangdahlem AB Germany
50th TFW 10th TFS F-100D Stationed Hahn AB, Germany
50th TFW 417th TFS F-100D Stationed Hahn AB, Germany
50th TFW 81ST TFS F-100D Stationed Hahn AB, Germany
Many of these are custom paints by DeltaDart


1962
20th TFW 79th TFS F-100D Stationed RAF Woodbridge
32nd FIS F-102 Stationed Soesterberg Air Base, Netherlands
496th FIS F-102 Stationed Ramstein Air Base, Germany
431st FIS F-102 Stationed Zaragoza Air Base, Spain
49th TFW 7th TFS F-105D Stationed Spangdahlem Air Base, West Germany
49th TFW 8th TFS F-105D Stationed Spangdahlem Air Base, West Germany
49th TFW 9th TFS F-105D Stationed Spangdahlem Air Base, West Germany



Still a ways to go so stay tuned.
Al

[Jorge]

That looks awesome!

Jorge
Miami, FL

[Dan]

It would be just great addition to the 50s World!

Regards,
Dan

[jwh]

More brilliant work from Al, Ken and Dan. As mentioned above another great addition to the Classic airfields library.

Thanks to you all from myself.

John

[nmlw]

CalClassic’s multi-airport African scenery displays HLLM with its 1995 name of Mitiga. I did a flight there in 2011 and called it Wheelus AB and the CalClassic military AI was well represented but the scenery cannot compare with yours. Folks may have to turn off the African scenery to avoid a conflict when running your scenery?

[Al]

I have already integrated with Africa 1960 so it won’t be an issue.

PS
I had extensive modifications to the Africa 1960 version of Wheelus and many of my other (Ken's) sceneries used Wheelus in their traffic files so very familiar with that version. However, it was also located in the wrong place, so Ken moved it to it correct location and we started from scratch. It only requires the removal of a few BGLs from the Africa 1960 Scenery and they will be listed in the release.

[connieguy]

We are now very near release. There is no problem with Africa 1960 providing that it is below the new scenery in the Scenery Library. I did move the base to accommodate the fact that the FS9 coastline is inaccurate, but not very far and not enough to cause any issues.

[Al]

Ken and I are happy to inform you that Wheelus is now released and available now at Flightsim.com and has been uploaded to SOH and AVSIM which should have it available soon.  There has been a lot more added since the above pictures where taken.

From 1959 Traffic


Have a good weekend.

Al

[Dan]

Thank you very very much, Al!!!

Regards,

Dan

[chris_c]

The attention to detail is amazing and the Wheelus AFB scenery looks nothing short of spectacular, Thanks to all involved.

Chris

[phlyer]

Thank you for such amazing scenery!
I see TACAN was developed in the US in the late 50's and I know Wheelus did have a TACAN at some point so I was wondering if a TACAN might have been installed there by the early 60's.
Anywho, I used AFCAD and relabled MTG VOR to "Wheelus TACAN" and added a DME so I can shoot TACAN approaches of my own design. I'm looking for approach charts for Wheelus during the 50's and 60's but no luck so far.

Phil

Edit...I dug up a USAF accident report dated 1964 and it mentioned the Wheelus TACAN. I'm curious what year it was installed at the base.

Edit-New...I found my answer at: 
search.archives.un.org/uploads/r/united-nations-archives/3/0/9/3091b5c84eac66fedd41b780500c10f921e63571db7ce1bcf940c47d9d399ef4/S-0727-0009-06-00001.pdf

It's a pdf of the 1961 Flight Information Publication - Terminal - Low Altitude and shows approach charts for Africa and Southwest Asia including Wheelus AFB.
The two approaches shown are the Radio Range approach and the TACAN approach. The TACAN appears to be on the field and a bit north of the present day VOR site and lists channel 33 (109.6 mHz) as it's frequency. The ID is "PI", same as the low frequency range station.

[Al]

Nice find Phil. We only had the charts in John’s album to work with and Ken handles the Nav stuff since my focus is always the ai and the ADE work.

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. Ken and I appreciate it.

[connieguy]

Al puts in many hours on these sceneries and deploys a very great deal of expertise while doing so. As he says, we both appreciate your appreciation.

[phlyer]

Using AFCAD, I left MTG as a VOR only and added a VOR/DME where the TACAN would have been and labled it "WHEELUS TACAN 33X" using 109.6 as it's VHF paired frequency and "PI" as it's ID. I labled the "PI" NDB "WHEELUS RANGE" seeing as it seemed to still be in operation as an approach aid in 1961 according to the FIP. Wish I could add the range as a RR4 station but that's beyond my skill set!
Now I can practice TACAN approaches at Wheelus using the VOR/DME as a substitute.
The SectionF8 Sabre is great for these types of approaches.

Phil

[jwh]

Another superb creation. Congratulations to all for their creative talent.

John