1.
St. Marie, Montana
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St. Marie is a census-designated place in Valley County, Montana, United States. The population was 264 at the 2010 census and it is located at the site of the former Glasgow Air Force Base. When the Air Force base was decommissioned, the housing was purchased and offered for sale to private individuals. While many of the bids for the houses were from salvage companies, homes which had housed thousands of military personnel when the base was in operation were briefly promoted as condominiums for retirees. Despite local efforts, most of the housing units sit empty. A few hundred remain in what is otherwise a partial ghost town. The runway remains in use as Glasgow Industrial Airport, a test site for Boeing aircraft, the nearby city of Glasgow, Montana has dropped in population by half after the base closure. The situation led to a number of St. Marie property owners being sued, the post office and town hall are still in operation along with a small handful of local businesses, but the school and a majority of businesses have closed. St. St. Marie is located at 48°24′18″N 106°30′08″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has an area of 22.9 square miles. As of the census of 2000, there were 183 people,92 households, the population density was 8.0 people per square mile. There were 1,035 housing units at a density of 45.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the CDP was 93. 44% White,2. 19% African American,2. 73% Native American,0. 55% Asian, hispanic or Latino of any race were 0. 55% of the population. 32. 6% of all households were made up of individuals and 17. 4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 1.99 and the average family size was 2.45. In the CDP, the population was out with 14. 8% under the age of 18,2. 7% from 18 to 24,12. 0% from 25 to 44,35. 5% from 45 to 64. The median age was 60 years, for every 100 females there were 103.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.5 males, the median income for a household in the CDP was $33,750, and the median income for a family was $34,792. Males had an income of $18,750 versus $17,188 for females
2.
Valley County, Montana
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Valley County is a county located in the U. S. state of Montana. Valley County was created from the division of Dawson County in 1893, as of the 2010 census, the population was 7,369. It is located on the Canada–United States border with Saskatchewan, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 5,062 square miles, of which 4,926 square miles is land and 136 square miles is water. It is the fourth-largest county in Montana by total area, the now abandoned air force base north of Glasgow, known as St. Marie, was a strong influence in the local economy before its closure. As of the census of 2000, there were 7,675 people,3,150 households, the population density was 2 people per square mile. There were 4,847 housing units at a density of 1 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 88. 14% White,0. 13% Black or African American,9. 42% Native American,0. 25% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,0. 26% from other races, and 1. 79% from two or more races. 0. 78% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race,28. 2% were of German,24. 0% Norwegian,6. 4% American,6. 0% English and 5. 5% Irish ancestry. 29. 30% of all households were made up of individuals and 12. 00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.93. In the county, the population was out with 25. 10% under the age of 18,6. 00% from 18 to 24,24. 30% from 25 to 44,25. 60% from 45 to 64. The median age was 42 years, for every 100 females there were 98.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.10 males, the median income for a household in the county was $30,979, and the median income for a family was $39,044. Males had an income of $27,233 versus $17,686 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,246, about 9. 50% of families and 13. 50% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15. 40% of those under age 18 and 14. 40% of those age 65 or over. As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 7,369 people,3,198 households, the population density was 1.5 inhabitants per square mile. There were 4,879 housing units at a density of 1.0 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 87. 0% white,9. 8% American Indian,0. 5% Asian,0. 2% black or African American,0. 3% from other races, and 2. 1% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 1. 2% of the population, in terms of ancestry,33. 4% were German,27. 9% were Norwegian,12. 4% were Irish,10. 3% were English, and 6. 8% were American
3.
Glasgow, Montana
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Glasgow is a city in and the county seat of Valley County, Montana, United States, with an estimated population of 3,414 as of 2015. American Indians inhabited the region for centuries, and extensive buffalo, the Nakoda, Lakota, and Dakota peoples alternately inhabited and claimed the region from the 16th to the late 19th centuries. In 1804 the Lewis and Clark expedition came within 15 miles of the site of Glasgow and noted the extensive herds of buffalo. Glasgow was founded in 1887 as a town by James J. Hill. The town was named after Glasgow in Scotland, Glasgow grew during the 1930s when President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the construction of the Fort Peck Dam, which became a major source of employment for the Glasgow area. During World War II, the Glasgow Army Airfield housed the 96th Bombardment Squadron and 614th Bombardment Squadron, flying B-17 Flying Fortresses, starting in December 1944, a German POW camp was established at the facility, lasting until the end of the war. After the war ended the base was closed, and part of the facility became the present day Glasgow Airport. Glasgow was the place of Lieutenant Colonel Ronald Speirs, famed member of Easy Company. In the 1960s, the rose to about 6,400 due to the nearby presence of the Glasgow Air Force Base, used during the Vietnam War. A significant amount of modern and Googie-style architecture was built in Glasgow at this time. After the de-activation and closure of the base in 1969, Glasgows population declined to half its one-time size by 1990. Glasgow currently functions as the regional administrative, shopping and services hub for Valley County. Glasgow is located at 48°11′54″N 106°38′7″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.43 square miles, all of it land. The town has an elevation of 2,093 feet and overlooks the Milk River Valley, Glasgow experiences a continental semi-arid climate with long, cold, dry winters and hot, dry summers. Two F2 tornadoes did however, hit the Glasgow area on June 25,1975, as of May 2012, the major industries present in Glasgow are retail, public administration, construction, and health care and social assistance. Farmers and farm services comprise 4% of employment, as of June 2014, the unemployment rate was 3. 2%. The median home price was an estimated $82,005 in 2009, Glasgow is served by the Glasgow School District. There are three schools in the district, Glasgow High School, the East Side School
4.
United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
5.
Christmas tree (aviation)
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A Christmas tree was a type of alert area constructed by the United States Air Force for the Strategic Air Command during the Cold War. Oftentimes, bombers or tanker aircraft were stationed next to a crew building. The alert apron, also known as a ramp, received the name Christmas tree because it basically resembled a tree of the same name. Before the development of the B-52 Stratofortress, aircraft such as the B-36 Peacemaker, B-50 Superfortress, due to the size of the aircraft, this created a problem in launching aircraft efficiently in the event of an emergency scramble, requiring a different solution to be devised. To fix this, aircraft were repositioned on specifically designed alert aprons arranged in herringbone configurations and this meant that the aircraft would be positioned at 45 degrees in relation to an alert apron center line leading to a short taxiway and then onto the nearest runway. The success of this also led to the adoption of the setup for the KC-97 Stratofreighter. During an alert, flight crews and ground crews would run out of the facility, e. g. the mole hole. This latter option was critical for crews of the last three aircraft on the ramp that were located several hundred yards from the alert facility. During an alert sortie, there was no specific departure order, although it is unknown how much each Christmas tree cost to construct and maintain, the Christmas tree at the former Loring Air Force Base, Maine is estimated to have cost $400 thousand. When it was constructed between 1959 and 1960
6.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
7.
Strategic Air Command
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At a lower echelon, headquarters divisions included Aircraft Engineering, Missile Concept, and Strategic Communications. In 1992, as part of an overall post-Cold War reorganization of the U. S. Planning to reorganize for a separate and independent postwar U. S. Air Force had begun by the fall of 1945, with the Simpson Board tasked to plan. the reorganization of the Army, SAC initially totaled 37,000 USAAF personnel. S. Air Force as an independent service, kenney, initial units reporting to the Strategic Air Command headquarters on 21 March 1946 included the Second Air Force, the IX Troop Carrier Command and the 73d Air Division. In addition to the bombing mission, SAC also devoted significant resources to aerial reconnaissance. An F-13 squadron, the F-13 later re-designated as the RB-29 Superfortress, was also established, SAC conducted routine aerial reconnaissance missions near the Soviet borders or near the 12-mile international waters limit, although some missions actually penetrated into Soviet airspace. The flight profiles of these missions—above 30,000 feet and in excess of 300 knots—made interception by Soviet air forces difficult until the Soviets 1948 introduction of the MiG-15 jet fighter. Project Nanook, the Cold War’s first Top Secret reconnaissance effort, used the first RB-29 missions for mapping and visual reconnaissance in the Arctic, later missions were Project LEOPARD along the Chukchi Peninsula, followed by Projects RICKRACK, STONEWORK, and COVERALLS. In 1946, the US possessed only nine atomic bombs and twenty-seven B-29s capable at any one time of delivering them, unfortunately, postwar budget and personnel cuts had had an insidious effect on SAC as its Deputy Commander, Major General Clements McMullen, implemented mandated force reductions. This continued to wear down SAC as a command and morale plummeted, as a result, by the end of 1947, only two of SACs eleven groups were combat ready. In terms of overall Air Force basing and infrastructure, SAC continued to acquire a share of USAF infrastructure. In 1947, before the USAF was established as an independent service, construction commenced on Limestone AAF, Maine, fort Dix AAF, New Jersey, Spokane AAF, Washington, and Wendover Field, Utah were also transferred to SAC between 30 April and 1 September 1947. Following establishment of the USAF as a service, SAC bases in the United States consisted of
8.
United States Air Force
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The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a branch of the military on 18 September 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947. It is the most recent branch of the U. S. military to be formed, the U. S. Air Force is a military service organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense, the U. S. Air Force provides air support for surface forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field. As of 2015, the service more than 5,137 military aircraft,406 ICBMs and 63 military satellites. It has a $161 billion budget with 313,242 active duty personnel,141,197 civilian employees,69,200 Air Force Reserve personnel, and 105,500 Air National Guard personnel. According to the National Security Act of 1947, which created the USAF and it shall be organized, trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air operations. The stated mission of the USAF today is to fly, fight, and win in air, space and we will provide compelling air, space, and cyber capabilities for use by the combatant commanders. We will excel as stewards of all Air Force resources in service to the American people, while providing precise and reliable Global Vigilance, Reach and it should be emphasized that the core functions, by themselves, are not doctrinal constructs. The purpose of Nuclear Deterrence Operations is to operate, maintain, in the event deterrence fails, the US should be able to appropriately respond with nuclear options. Dissuading others from acquiring or proliferating WMD, and the means to deliver them, moreover, different deterrence strategies are required to deter various adversaries, whether they are a nation state, or non-state/transnational actor. Nuclear strike is the ability of forces to rapidly and accurately strike targets which the enemy holds dear in a devastating manner. Should deterrence fail, the President may authorize a precise, tailored response to terminate the conflict at the lowest possible level, post-conflict, regeneration of a credible nuclear deterrent capability will deter further aggression. Finally, the Air Force regularly exercises and evaluates all aspects of operations to ensure high levels of performance. Nuclear surety ensures the safety, security and effectiveness of nuclear operations, the Air Force, in conjunction with other entities within the Departments of Defense or Energy, achieves a high standard of protection through a stringent nuclear surety program. The Air Force continues to pursue safe, secure and effective nuclear weapons consistent with operational requirements, adversaries, allies, and the American people must be highly confident of the Air Forces ability to secure nuclear weapons from accidents, theft, loss, and accidental or unauthorized use. This day-to-day commitment to precise and reliable nuclear operations is the cornerstone of the credibility of the NDO mission, positive nuclear command, control, communications, effective nuclear weapons security, and robust combat support are essential to the overall NDO function. OCA is the method of countering air and missile threats, since it attempts to defeat the enemy closer to its source
9.
Central Air Defense Force
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The Central Air Defense Force is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with Air Defense Command being stationed at Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base and it was inactivated on July 1,1960. CADF was a command and control organization of Air Defense Command. Its origins date to 1 March 1949 when Continental Air Command reorganized Air Defense Command when it became an operating agency. Air defense units within the Continental United States were given to the Eastern and Western Air Defense Liaison Groups, the southeast region east of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico was reassigned to EADF. afhra. af. mil/. USAF Aerospace Defense Command publication, The Interceptor, January 1979 Maurer, Maurer, Air Force Combat Units Of World War II. Maxwell AFB, Alabama, Office of Air Force History, Air Force Combat Wings Lineage and Honors Histories 1947–1977. Maxwell AFB, Alabama, Office of Air Force History, searching the skies, the legacy of the United States Cold War defense radar program. Prepared for United States Air Force Headquarters Air Combat Command
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This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.
