The Daily Alaska empire., 1941-04-14
TWO 5,OOO-F00T RUNWAYSSLATED
 FOR FIELD HERE
CAA Announces Plans for Six New Airports in
 Alaska This Year

Before winter. ct least one usable runaway on each of six new airports in Alaska, located and engineered for national defense, will be in oper- ation. according to a report made to General Donald H. Connolly, Ad- ministrator of Civil Aeronautics. by CAA engineers after a two months inspection tour through Alaska.
 New airports at Juneau, Cordova, Boundary. Big Delta, West Ruby and Nome are either in course of con- struction or awaiting receipt Of bids for work to be done during the sum- mer. In several remote sections, the Hast loads of supplies for construc- tion of radio facilities are being talk Fen in before the spring thaWs Wlpe out the new trails broken by dog teams and tractor trains. By winter Alaskas available airport facilities and radio aids to flying will be more than doubled.
 Sites Visited
 c. M. Lample. Chief of the Air ways Engineering Division, and Har- rv O. Strawn. Associate Airways Engineer. in company with Jack T. Jefford, Airways Inspector for the CAA at Anchorage visited all the new field sites. completed arrange ments for development of some Of them, and looked over plans and surveys already made for future de- velopment both of airports and air ways in the Territory. They flew in one of the CAAs twin-motored Cess ma Monoplanes, landing on tempor- ary fields which the hardbitten Alaska pilots have been using for years. and in some cases landing at the new sites. Flying in January, February and early March, they used wheel landing gear throughout the tour.
 The new airportS are a part of the $40 100000 airport program insti- tuted last year now being administ- cred by the CAA and the Corps of Alaska's share is $3,300,- 900 and is being handled by the Air ways Engineering Division of the CAA. Canada's Airways system will tie up with ours at Boundary.
 Growth of Flying
 Comparisons between existing fa- cilities and the new facilities to be made available emphasize the growth of flying and forecast its increasing importance in the Terri tory, where there is only one major highway" according to the airways men. At Nome, there is landing place consisting of one runway on which commercial pilots have been landing for years but which is far from adequate for even the most meager of military uses. The new field there will have runways in two directions, 4,500 feet long or longer
 At Cordova, the airport" is lit erally a wide place on road that leads out from town. The airport is at the end of the road and is sit uated on the side of mountain. The runway is 2200 feet long, with the mountain towering on one side and dropping down to the river on the other. The new field, 12 miles from town, lies in the public domain, and will make possible runways more than than 5000 feet long.
 At Big Delta and Boundary, along the Juneau Fairbanks Nome Airway, the new fields will be adequate in size to accommodate the largest military planes. The field at Fig Delta is the only field in Alaska which lies alongside highway, and this is the only major highway in Alaska, leading from Valdez to Fair banks. This road is closed in the winter but the airports are kept usable by the Alaska method of rolling the snow, which packs it SO