"Stubby" wrote in message
. ..

I'll bet this happens a lot. "Hanscom" as in L.G. Hanscom Air Field has
been KBED, Bedford, for a long time. I believe it stopped being a USAF
air field in the 50's.


Hanscom Air Force Base is still in operation. It has no flying mission,
transient USAF aircraft use the runways of Laurence G. Hanscom Field which
is adjacent to the base. Flight operations ceased in September 1973, the
last flying unit assigned there was, I believe, the 731st Tactical Airlift
Squadron which operated the Fairchild C-123.

Hanscom Field was named for a local proponent of civil aviation. Laurence
Gerard Hanscom was a Boston pilot and newspaper reporter, a founder of the
Massachusetts Civil Air Reserve. He was killed in the crash of his Fleet
biplane in February 1941.

Incidentally, the newly minted U.S. Air Force did NOT name each of its
airfields after a dead hero from the state in which the field was located.
If the field was already named for a person when the USAF assumed control it
remained named for that person, with perhaps only a minor change to identify
it as an Air Force Base.

For example, K. I. Sawyer Airport was named for Kenneth Ingalls Sawyer, the
county road commissioner that in 1941 proposed the site for an airport. It
became K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base in 1956 and Sawyer International Airport
when the USAF left about eight years ago.



The reverse happens and the old name is forgotten. Nobody calls
Manchester (NH) "Grenier" anymore. And I believe Orlando used to be an
airbase.


Orlando International Airport was formerly McCoy Air Force Base, named for
Colonel Michael McCoy. Between 1951 and 1958 it was called Pinecastle Air
Force Base, named for a nearby town. Colonel McCoy was the commander of the
321st Bombardment Wing, which was based at Pinecastle. He was killed in an
aircraft accident in November 1957, the base was renamed in his honor the
following year. The USAF closed the base in 1974.