My SSR: 04 Ricochet, ADDCO, Eibach, Joe’s Tune, Bernie’s Kit,Air Dam, Aux Fan & Lower Radiator Supt
Camouflaging Burbank CA
During the 40's, special affords we taken to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant to protect it in case of Japanese air attack. Never thought they could cover that much land.
Here the link with pictures. NextGov - Tech Insiders: Hiding in Plain Sight
My SSR: '03 Smokin' Asphalt, Vin 1656 B-day 11/13/03, Slightly modified via bad influence hdflstf & TommyB
Santa Monica Airport, too... we had Douglas Aircraft...
With World War II raging in Europe, Douglas realized well before Pearl Harbor that his plant was a sitting duck for an air attack. He didn’t wait for the government to protect him; he took the controls. Douglas asked his chief engineer and test pilot, Frank Collbohm, and a renowned architect, H. Roy Kelley, to devise a way to camouflage the plant. (Later, Collbohm would found Rand Corp. and Kelley would design its headquarters.)
Together with Warner Bros. studio set designers, they made the plant and airstrip disappear–at least from the air.
Almost 5 million square feet of chicken wire, stretched across 400 tall poles, canopied the terminal, hangars, assorted buildings and parking lots. Atop the mesh stood lightweight wood-frame houses with attached garages, fences, clotheslines, even “trees” made of twisted wire and chicken feathers spray-painted to look like leaves.
Tanker trucks spewed green paint on the runway to simulate a field of grass. Streets and sidewalks were painted on the covering to blend into the adjacent Sunset Park neighborhood of modest homes that housed Douglas employees.
The tallest hangar was made to look like a gently sloping hillside neighborhood. Designers even matched up the painted streets with real ones.
When they were done, the area was so well disguised that pilots had a hard time finding Clover Field. Some of them landed at nearby airstrips instead, protesting that someone had moved the field.
Douglas adapted. When planes were due, he stationed men at each end of the runway to wave red flags like matadors. Eventually, the signalmen were replaced with white markers painted on the hillsides.
(The facade was such a success that Warner Bros. replicated it, fearing that the studio looked like an aircraft plant from the air.)
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