KUCA: (Warning large pics)

Holocene

Holocene

Well-Known Member
This is where I learned to fly, first solo etc. A former Class-D, the field has now been closed for over 2 years.

Griffiss (KRME) is clearly visible to the northwest:

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The field remains essentially unchanged from how I remember it:

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upup89 said:
Any particular reason for the shut down? Sorry. I'm not familiar with the area.
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Griffiss Air Force Base was shuttered in 1995 as part of the 1993 federal Base Realignment and Closure process. The loss of the base sent the area economy reeling, and local officials have been working ever since to find ways to bring new jobs to the massive piece of vacated property.

One of the major assets of the former base is its runway, which is one of the longest in the Northeast.

The county already operated an airport in Whitestown, one that handled passenger air travel for decades until 2002.

County officials decided to move the county airport to the larger operation at the Griffiss Business and Technology Park, a process completed at the end of 2006.
Board of Legislators Chairman Gerald Fiorini of Rome was a major proponent of the airport move.

“We were stagnant there,” he said of the Whitestown site. “We thought we had a better chance at economic development at a larger airport.”
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Griffiss' 416th Bomb Wing/668th Bomb Squadron had their B-52G/Hs decorated with a cool Statue of Liberty on the tail. Sad for that piece of history to be gone now.
 

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Wow, so they shut Oneida County down! When I left Griffiss back in 96, the talk at that time suggested they would shut down Griffiss and keep Oneida County open. There was even talk of turning Griffiss into a NASCAR track! (The logic, it seemed, was that it's three triangular runways - now taxiways, but originally runways - could be banked into a Pocono-like tri-oval race course.)

Of course the disaster that was Woodstock '99 probably saw the crushing of those possibilities.

One little known fact - during Desert Storm, they painted over the Statue of Liberty tails, because they were worried that if one went down over Iraq, the propogranda implications of seeing that tail sticking out of the ground were too great. After Desert Storm, with the reorganization of the AF into ACC, the planes were given the ACC style tail designations.

Great pics!
 
after working for a company based out of KRME...i flew over this airport a few times...we were told that after it was closed down that the TSA used it alot for training new "agents", utilizing the runways to stage certain re-enactments and scenarios.

[please not my use of quotations around agents]
 
CFIT99 said:
after working for a company based out of KRME...i flew over this airport a few times...we were told that after it was closed down that the TSA used it alot for training new "agents", utilizing the runways to stage certain re-enactments and scenarios.

[please not my use of quotations around agents]
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That is very possible. Every once in a while when I am flying over it, I will see some car driving down the runway or taxiways. Not sure if it is that though.
 
im flying over it later this afternoon. I will have to take a closer look. I could have sworn there werent "x's" painted on the runways but then again I wasnt looking all that close. Griffiss has had some cool stuff over there lately. I saw/heard two jetblue planes over there sounded like they were doing touch n go's or practicing instrument approaches.
 
there is always some airline or alot of military doing touch n go's...last i saw was a c-5, kc-10 and a c 130 doing low approaches

also the fact that there is a huge MX facility for airliners, there is always 777's or an A320 floating around the hangars.

the runway is 12,000 x 200
 
well i was stuck in clouds today both directions and didnt see a thing. The guy at griffiss approach said he hadnt seen anything in about a week. There was a c-130 shooting approaches over there though. I have to make the drive up there one of these days.
 
CFIT99 said:
there is always some airline or alot of military doing touch n go's...last i saw was a c-5, kc-10 and a c 130 doing low approaches

also the fact that there is a huge MX facility for airliners, there is always 777's or an A320 floating around the hangars.

the runway is 12,000 x 200
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They should have a pretty well-restored Lockheed Constellation there right now as well. Not it's final resting place though.
 
i thought that thing had left. i could have sworn i read an article in the times union about how it was finally finished and ready to leave. Now I definately need to make the drive up there.
 
Bummer... My Mom is from Utica and the last time I was there was for my grandmother's funeral. I was furloughed from DAL at the time and my boss let me fly the Lear 35 up to KUCA to attend. It was a pretty desolate airport then though so I'm sure the financial pressure to keep it open was great... not a lot of money in that area.

My Dad was based at Griffiss after Vietnam & that's the area my parents met, I know they went on more than a few flying dates out of UCA... sad.
 
amorris311 said:
i thought that thing had left. i could have sworn i read an article in the times union about how it was finally finished and ready to leave. Now I definately need to make the drive up there.
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Pretty sure it was on the ramp as of June 28th; not sure about now.

amorris, do you live around here?
 
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