Business View Magazine - Sept 2023

290 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 9 Air Corps began to rush the project to fruition, and it soon changed the civil building plans to that of a military airfield and ground station. Barracks, mess halls, a hospital, a church, a cinema, administrative buildings, aircraft hangars, and a control tower were all constructed. At first, the facility was called the China Spring Army Air Field (a nod to native Texan Claire Chennault and his famed Flying Tigers squadrons; the fighter pilots trained in Texas before going overseas to defend the Chinese Republic from Imperial Japan). It later became known as Waco Army Airfield Number Two before being renamed the Blackland Army Airfield––a reference to the local area’s black soil. Activated in ’42, Blackland was at first a school for training glider pilots in nine weeks. It used many two-engine trainers, such as the Cessna AT-17 “Bobcat,” the Curtiss-Wright AT-Nine, the Beechcraft AT-10 “Wichita” and the TB-25 Mitchell. The Waco Regional Airport has come a mighty long way since that time, and these days, as Mathis says, it’s smooth sailing and onward and upward. “It’s got roots,” he says. “It’s got history. It’s a long-standing facility, but it’s also a modernized facility that has all the features and amenities you’d be looking for.” Whether you’re a tourist looking for a good deal on a flight, or you’re an aviation entity, looking to expand your business, Waco Regional has a choice that’s right for you, as Mathis emphasizes. “We have the room.” “It’s fantastic,” he concludes enthusiastically. for what was at the time to be the Waco Municipal Airport began in 1941. However, in the early part of 1942, not long after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. War Department leased the site, and it was given to the Air Corps for use as a training airfield. At that time, construction consisted of three runways only partially completed. Yet as so often happened during the necessary haste involved in America’s wartime efforts, the PREFERRED VENDOR/PARTNER n Walker Partners www.walkerpartners.com