96AZ - Coronado Field is a fictionalized restoration of the historical Marana Auxiliary Army Airfield #3, also known as Coronado Field, part of a complex of training fields associated with what was then Marana Army Air Field located at modern KMZJ - Pinal Air Park.
Several other of these fields have since been converted to other airfield uses - KAVQ, for example, was once Marana AAF #2 - Rillito, and #5 - Sahuaro, is now El Tiro gliderport. Coronado was left as-is when it was abandoned sometime in the late 50s or early 60s, after having been surplussed by the government at the end of WWII and used in some capacity as a private flying school under contract to the air force after that.
The structure in the middle is not historically accurate, and indeed I was unable to find any good period resource for this exact field's central structure, though some references from #4 - Avra Valley gave the inspiration for the general feel. Certainly, had it continued as a private flying field up to today, it could conceivably look as it does in this add-on. Likewise, the parking spots, runway starts, windsock, and fuel are all fictional, to my knowledge - I don't know what provisions, if any, these fields had beyond a central tower / "crash truck" structure, a border fence, and the bizarre 3000' square of asphalt, nor do I have any idea how they were operationally used, beyond some sort of colored light system for night departures.
My primary reference for this scenery is this fantastic website: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/AZ/Airfields_AZ_Tucson_N.htm#coronado
Beyond that I have very little information about these AAF aux fields and how they were used, and partly created the add on just to see what it would be like to operate from such a strange field. If anyone knows any details about these, how they were used and constructed, or has any good references for this era of the USAAF, please let me know!
The gorgeous T-6 in the screenshots is the VH-WHF livery by ferondoe: https://flightsim.to/file/26542/mf-t-6g-vh-whf
To install, just extract the "iridium191-airport-96az-coronado-field" folder into your community folder.
3 months ago
Hobbes22