CAF Airbase Arizona

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CAF Airbase Arizona The official page of the Commemorative Air Force Airbase Arizona.

The CAF is dedicated to Honoring American Military Aviation through Flight, Exhibition and Remembrance. The CAF was founded to acquire, restore and preserve in flying condition a complete collection of combat aircraft which were flown by all military services of the United States, and selected aircraft of other nations, for the education and enjoyment of present and future generations of Americans. More than just a collection of airworthy warplanes from the past, the CAF's fleet of historic aircraft, known as the CAF Ghost Squadron, recreate, remind and reinforce the lessons learned from the defining moments in American military aviation history.

Not to be outdone by Old Number 30, Sentimental Journey wanted to get in her own view of the Grand Canyon on this !Have...
10/21/2026

Not to be outdone by Old Number 30, Sentimental Journey wanted to get in her own view of the Grand Canyon on this !

Have you ever been?

📸 ShirleySukkel

How long does it take YOU to get started at the beginning of a new week? 😆📸 ShirleySukkel
10/19/2026

How long does it take YOU to get started at the beginning of a new week? 😆

📸 ShirleySukkel

Here's a nice view on a ! Here's a shot from St George of a Stearman looking over Old umber 30, and the cutest little ...
10/17/2026

Here's a nice view on a ! Here's a shot from St George of a Stearman looking over Old umber 30, and the cutest little formation of trainers on the tarmac. 😉

Did you used to play airplane when you were their age?

On October 16, 1944, seven American B-25 Mitchell bombers swept across Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor at treetop height, at...
10/16/2026

On October 16, 1944, seven American B-25 Mitchell bombers swept across Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor at treetop height, attacking Japanese ships in one of the most audacious low-level bombing raids of the war in China.

The Japanese had gathered a large concentration of merchant ships in the harbor, hoping to escape American naval forces operating near Formosa. But the ships were about to discover that the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force had other plans.

The attack was carefully coordinated. B-24 Liberators would first bomb the Kowloon docks from high altitude, drawing the attention of Japanese antiaircraft defenses. Then eight B-25s from the 11th and 491st Bombardment Squadrons, escorted by P-40 Warhawks, would come roaring across the harbor at low altitude.

One Mitchell turned back with engine trouble, leaving seven to make the attack.

Led by Captain Danforth Loring, the B-25s descended to just 75 to 100 feet above the water, flying directly into a storm of machine-gun and automatic weapons fire from the Japanese ships. Each bomber carried six 500-pound bombs with delayed-action fuses, allowing the aircraft to escape before their bombs detonated.

As the Mitchells raced across the harbor, their forward-firing .50-caliber machine guns raked the decks of Japanese vessels while turret and waist gunners attacked ships on either side.

The entire bombing run lasted approximately 45 seconds.

In that brief time, the four aircraft of the 11th Bombardment Squadron alone fired 6,558 rounds of .50-caliber am******on. Bombs struck freighters, triggering secondary explosions and sending flames and black smoke rising above the harbor. The Mitchells claimed two merchant ships destroyed, two probably destroyed, and three damaged from the attacks by the 11th Squadron's aircraft alone.

The Japanese fought back fiercely. One B-25 suffered an explosive shell hit to its engine nacelle. Another was struck by a shell that penetrated the cockpit and exploded, blowing out a window and shredding the pilot's parachute. Remarkably, the pilot escaped injury.

The raid was part of a larger Fourteenth Air Force attack involving B-24s, B-25s, P-40s, and P-51 Mustangs. American operational reports credited the combined strike with damaging or sinking 15 Japanese cargo vessels.

The 11th Bombardment Squadron's own wartime history, compiled in 1945, described the October 16 attack as the squadron's most outstanding mission and possibly the greatest single achievement of the Fourteenth Air Force.

Believe it or not, this B-17 made it back home.On the morning of October 15, 1944, the B-17G “Lovely Julie” of the 398th...
10/15/2026

Believe it or not, this B-17 made it back home.

On the morning of October 15, 1944, the B-17G “Lovely Julie” of the 398th Bomb Group took part in a raid targeting Cologne, Germany.

Immediately after releasing its bombs, a German 88mm antiaircraft shell exploded in the nose section, killing Staff Sergeant George Abbott, the togglier, instantly and seriously wounding the navigator, 2nd Lieutenant Raymond LeDoux.

The force of the blast shredded the entire nose of the bomber, tore loose the instrument panel such that only the compass and altimeter were somewhat functional, and left the pilots, 1st Lieutenant Lawrence M. DeLancey and 1st Lieutenant Phillip Stahlman, battling sub-zero temperatures at altitude with their boots partly exposed to the elements. Communication systems were knocked out and oxygen lines were severed, forcing the crew to rapidly descend to lower altitudes just to breathe.

With the navigator’s equipment and maps destroyed, LeDoux, after recovering somewhat from his initial injury, stood between the pilots on the flight deck giving them headings from memory using visual landmarks to steer the battered aircraft home. As they limped over Belgium, a pair of friendly P-51s escorted them across the Channel.

Approaching Nuthampstead, the pilots managed to lower the landing gear, only for hydraulic fluid to spray across the cockpit, confirming their suspicion that they would land without brakes or instruments. DeLancey, peering around wreckage blocking his view, executed a “by guess and feel” landing, bringing “Lovely Julie” safely to a stop just beyond the runway’s end in the mud.

Every crew member, except Abbott, survived the ordeal: LeDoux’s navigation and DeLancey’s flying earned official commendations for both. The aircraft’s battered nose became the subject of iconic wartime photographs, a testament not just to the ruggedness of the B-17 but also to the extraordinary resolve and teamwork of its crew:

✪ 1st Lt. Lawrence M. DeLancey, Pilot
✪ 1st Lt. Phillip H. Stahlman, Co-Pilot
✪ 2nd Lt. Raymond J. LeDoux, Navigator
★ S/Sgt. George E. Abbott, Togglier, KIA
✪ T/Sgt. Benjamin H. Ruckel, Engineer/Top Turret Gunner
✪ T/Sgt. Wendell A. Reed, Radio Operator, Gunner
✪ T/Sgt. Russell A. Lachman, Waist Gunner
✪ S/Sgt. Albert Albro, Ball Turret Gunner
✪ S/Sgt. Herbert D. Guild, Tail Gunner

We're not sure how you say "Harrier" in French, but we're pretty sure it's not "Balzac." 😆Yet, it was on 13 October 1962...
10/13/2026

We're not sure how you say "Harrier" in French, but we're pretty sure it's not "Balzac." 😆

Yet, it was on 13 October 1962 that one of the strangest-looking aircraft ever to wear the Dassault name lifted vertically from the ground for the first time: the Dassault Balzac V.

And before we go any farther, that is Balzac “Vee,” not Balzac Five. The V stood for "vertical," reflecting the aircraft’s role as a vertical takeoff and landing, or VTOL, experimental aircraft.

France was then exploring a supersonic combat aircraft that could operate without conventional runways. The ultimate goal was the Mirage III V, a Mach 2-class VTOL fighter. Because the engines planned for that aircraft were still under development, Dassault and Sud-Aviation first built a smaller, subsonic flying laboratory to prove that the basic concept could actually work.

The Balzac V combined a conventional Bristol Siddeley Orpheus engine for forward flight with eight Rolls-Royce RB.108 lift jets installed vertically inside the fuselage. During takeoff and landing, those eight engines pushed the airplane upward. Once airborne, the pilot would eventually transition to conventional forward flight using the Orpheus engine.

BTW, its unusual name had nothing to do with the French novelist Honoré de Balzac. The aircraft incorporated part of the wing from the Mirage III prototype, which was serial number 001, and the number 001 happened to resemble the famous telephone number BALZAC 00-01 used by Jean Mineur Publicité, a French cinema advertising company whose commercials were familiar to French audiences. The nickname stuck.

On October 12, Dassault test pilot René Bigand conducted the aircraft’s first stationary flight at Melun-Villaroche. For safety, the Balzac was restrained by nylon cables attached to the aircraft. A second tethered hover followed that day and another on October 15. Then, on October 18, Bigand made the first unrestricted low-level flight. By March 1963, the Balzac was successfully transitioning from vertical to horizontal flight, and completed the full sequence of vertical takeoff, forward flight, and vertical landing.

The Balzac V would never become an operational aircraft. It was a technology demonstrator, built to answer a question engineers around the world were wrestling with during the Cold War: Could a high-performance combat aircraft dispense with the runway altogether? For Dassault, the answer was at least technically yes, and the lessons learned from the little Balzac V led directly toward the much more ambitious Mirage III V.

Here's a shot for you from our friends at Glantz Aviation. Can you guess where we were when this was taken?
10/12/2026

Here's a shot for you from our friends at Glantz Aviation. Can you guess where we were when this was taken?

The view on the way home from St. George last weekend was pretty spectacular from our C-47 Old Number 30! 📸 TJ Cook
10/10/2026

The view on the way home from St. George last weekend was pretty spectacular from our C-47 Old Number 30!

📸 TJ Cook

Not every B-17 lost in Europe during World War II fell to flak or fighters. In the early morning on 9 October 1943, B-17...
10/09/2026

Not every B-17 lost in Europe during World War II fell to flak or fighters.

In the early morning on 9 October 1943, B-17F 41-24529 of the 546th Bomb Squadron, 384th Bomb Group, launched as a replacement aircraft for a mission against the Arado aircraft works at Anklam, Germany, but its late takeoff left the crew unable to locate the formation, and it returned to base.

That afternoon, another crew took 41-24529 back into the air for a maintenance flight to "slow-time" two engines. After about 90 minutes, a fuel-transfer problem began causing the aircraft to lose fuel, and pilot 2nd Lt. John Berbrich headed back to Grafton Underwood.

The main runway was temporarily blocked by another aircraft with a blown tire, so the tower directed him toward the shorter north-south runway. His first approach was too high, forcing him to go around. On the second attempt, witnesses thought the Fortress was still coming in too fast.

They were right.

The B-17 touched down too far along the runway, continued off the end, smashed through a hedge, and dropped into a roadside ditch. Its landing gear collapsed, leaving the Fortress sprawled beside the road.

Remarkably, Berbrich and the three other men aboard escaped without serious injury.

The official investigation placed responsibility on pilot error, concluding that excessive speed and the long landing left too little runway available to stop the heavily loaded bomber.

For 41-24529, however, the accident ended the war.

The B-17 had only joined the 384th Bomb Group 17 days earlier after previously serving with the 305th Bomb Group. It never completed a credited combat mission with its new unit and was salvaged eight days after the crash.

This Saturday is Family Day at the Airbase, so bring the kids for a day of affordable family fun!
10/08/2026

This Saturday is Family Day at the Airbase, so bring the kids for a day of affordable family fun!

Address

2017 N Greenfield Road
Mesa, AZ
85215

Opening Hours

Wednesday 10am - 4pm
Thursday 10am - 4pm
Friday 10am - 4pm
Saturday 10am - 4pm

Telephone

(480) 924-1940

Website

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