Rice Army Air Field
Rice Army Airfield was home to the first ever P-51 division squadron. Now take flight from that airport where they trained from. Rice is located a few miles away from Amboy where Amboy Airfield is on Route 66. In 1942, the US Military used this entire 18,000 square mile site that housed roughly 13 training camps (that held over 15k troops at each camp). This entire location was called the ‘Desert Training Center.’
Right in the middle of this location is an airfield called Rice Army Airfield. The airfield closed down in 1944 which was home to 3,000 officers. Originally it had proposal plans to have 6 runways, although only 2 were created during it’s life-time before the airfield became abandoned. Just like real life the runways span 1,500×150 meters. The width of these runways are remarkable.
The entire airport was built from reference images and all built in-sim (see the DOCS), not using ADE. This airfield is almost a 1 to 1 scale (since I don’t have any references images from the ground), but it is very close to be a 1 to 1 scale in terms of runway paths, parking layout and road path for vehicles. This Military site was created about 2 to 3 months ago on my harddrive (code named Operation Sandstorm), but I never really fully finished it because I didn’t have the time to do so. So here we are. This Air Field has a lot of history, I hope you enjoy it.
Reenvisioned Airport
Airport:
-ICAO: RAAF (Rice Amy Air Forces)
-Runway: 2
–Both runways are 1,500×150 meters.
3 taxiway paths
–One path for the left runway and another path for the right runway, both are linked together so you can freely depart from either runway.
–Last path is located near the fuel depot so that you can travel to and from the runway/parking spot.
-10 parking spots
–Parking spots are catered for General Aviation aircraft. Anything larger and you will clip through the hangar.
-2 windsocks
-2 fuel depot parking spots.
-2 helicopter pads
-Fuel service trucks
–Fuel service is available here although it is located at the other end of the air field, so it will take awhile for them to drive to you. Just make some popcorn.
Add-ons:
-(OPTIONAL) – If you want to see static aircraft on the airfield like the ones shown in the images. You will need to download the ‘Vintage Aircraft collector library.’
-Runways can handle the C-17, although I have no parking for any large aircraft like this. So don’t taxi, just stay on the runway.
