An architectural rendering of the new aviation facility at Indiantown Gap, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, as presented in the West Schuylkill Herald, July 26, 1973, in reporting on the ground breaking ceremony.
GOVERNOR MILTON SHAPP BREAKS GROUND FOR NATION’S LARGEST NG AIRFIELD
INDIANTOWN GAP, PENNSYLVANIA, July 19, 1973 — Governor Milton J. Shapp today broke ground for a new $3 million Pennsylvania Army National Guard Aviation support facility which will the largest Army National Guard facility of its kind in the country.
Donning a hard hat and operating a large earth-mover, the Governor began excavation on the 72-acre site at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, which will house and maintain 77 helicopters and employ 107 full-time federal technicians. The new facility will serve 172 National Guard crew members and is expected to be completed in late 1974, according to Major General Harry J. Mier Jr., State Adjutant General.
The planned 45,000 square-foot hangar will be large enough to enclose three football fields, side by side, under its roof.
When complete the facility will consolidate Army National Guard aviation units now located in Allentown, Lancaster and New Cumberland. Not affected is the aviation support facility in Washington, Pennsylvania.
Preparation of the construction site is being performed by members of the 201st Civil Engineering Flight. Pennsylvania Air National Guard, the 103rd Engineering Battalion of Philadelphia and the 1066th Engineering Company from Warrington, both Army National Guard units. Supervising the project is Daniel N. Boas III, the chief of the engineering section, State Armory Board.
Under the direction of Frank C. Hilton, secretary of the Department of Property and Supplies, Leonard A. Domiesky of the Bureau of Engineering and Construction designed the facility’s enormous hangar. The low bidder for the hangar was H. B. Alexander and Sons of Harrisburg. The firm submitted a bid of $2,569,000. The site, landscaping, hover lanes and 56 concrete parking pads will be constructed at a cost of approximately $500,000. The facility itself is being federally funded. Operation and maintenance costs will be split between the federal government and the state, with the state paying 25 percent.
The new Army National Guard facility will have a flight control tower to coordinate the estimated 80 operations expected each weekday and the 480 expected during the weekends. An operation is either a takeoff or landing. The increased weekend activity will be the result of National guard training flights originating at the new facility. It will also be available for transient aircraft from the active Army and other service components.
Constructing at Indiantown Gap Military Reservation is in consonance with an environmental study on noise abatement which recommends the moving of flight operations away from the moving of flight operations away from the cities.
The new construction is intended to eliminate wasteful duplication of physical structures and to substantially upgrade the quality of the overall operation. The consolidation will result in a 20 percent reduction in present State operation and maintenance costs needed to support three separate facilities.
The Lancaster and Allentown operations are presently conducted in rented facilities. The structures presently being used at New Cumberland will be released to the Bureau of Aviation of the Department of Transportation which sorely needs more operating space.
The sprawling Indiantown Gap Military Reservation is an 18,000 acre complex in Lebanon County which is the site for the Pennsylvania Department of Military Affairs, the office of The Adjutant General, units of the Pennsylvania Army and Air National Guard, Army Reserves, and active Army.
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Drawing and article obtained from Newspapers.com.
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