dallashistory

How many of you have memories of this now-gone airport?

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/TX/Air ... rth_NE.htm



Off-line, Bill was sharing of memory of a flight in Braniff's new Lockheed Electra. He mentioned flying out of Amon Carter Field; I was thinking he meant today's field north of Ft. Worth, but now realize he was talking about this airport.

We started our vacation at a hotel in Arlington not far from this location, and drove right by as we headed south. I think I saw the field where the airport was; but didn't see what was left of the northern end of Runway 17.

Well. Color me behind. I thought that it - Greater Fort Worth International or whatever - was stilll in use. I was in the place a time or two only. Wasn't there a static display of a B-36 there? The "City of Fort Worth" or some? Thanks for putting the picture up, james.

Bill Crane wrote:Wasn't there a static display of a B-36 there? The "City of Fort Worth" or some? Thanks for putting the picture up, james.

Yes, that is correct; if you read down through the link I included; they mention the B-36. It was heavily vandelized; and there was talk before the runways were torn up of fixing it up just enough to fly it to DFW and out of harm's way; but cooler heads nixed the idea.

It was finally moved to the Southwest Aerospace Museum (SAM) on the edge of Carswell AFB. When that museum closed; it was again vandelized and under threat from scrapping by the city; it was then sent to the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, AZ. So, the birthplace of the B-36 no longer has an example of it.

Color me behind again for not reading the text. The B-36 is even shown in one of the internal pictures. IMO the history gives a pretty accurate picture of the rivalry btween Dallas and Fort Worth that delayed the construction and use of a common airport for so long.

The Dallas argument for so long was that with a very high percentage of the traffic coming from Dallas there was no need to go halvers on a joint airport. Today you have DFW and Love and is it Meachum north of Fort Worth? Be interesting to know the where the people came from who board at each place today.

But Love had no future as a primary airport, convenient though it was (is).

Mention is made in the article of taking off from Love and landing at GSW or Midway which was not far away and that it was used by commuters who may have been largely airline emplyees riding free or almost so. That trip was a relatively cheap way to take a date on a plane trip, howbeit one I could never afford. You could fly from Love to Midway and have dessert in the coffee shop and then fly back to Love, etc.

I read somewhere that Ft Worth actually made money off selling GSW property, what with the huge increase of property values brought on by DFW being next door.

I hated seeing the loss of the B-36 too. Better than losing it altogether though. It had laid in pieces for decades. The last time I saw it was part of the fuselage was displayed in a hanger at Carswell during a Blue Angels Show about five years ago.