page_title: Orly Air Base
section_title: American Air Service Acceptance Park No. 1
hierarchical_section_title: Orly Air Base / History / American Air Service Acceptance Park No. 1
caption_attribution_description: English: Orly Aerodrome - Site Map 2, 1918
context_page_description: Orly Air Base was a United States Air Force Facility during the early part of the Cold War, located at Aeroport de Paris-Orly, 15 kilometres south of Paris, France. The American Air Base was located on the north side of the airport, in an area east of the current-day Val-de Marne Essonne.
  The facility was first developed as a military airfield by the Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. With the end of the war, in 1920 it was eventually developed into a civil airport. After the 1940 Battle of France, the occupying German Luftwaffe seized the facility and used it as a military airfield. In 1944, the Germans were driven out and it subsequently became an Advanced Landing Ground designated A-47 for the United States Army Air Forces Ninth Air Force.
  Rebuilt after the war as a joint civil/military airfield, the primary use of the base was to support Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe at Rocquencourt. Secondary functions were as a personnel processing center for inbound and outbound personnel assigned to France, and as a limited operational transport base.
context_section_description: The American Aviation Acceptance Park was formally established on 31 March 1918, when the 6th Company, 2d Regiment Air Service mechanics arrived from the 2d Air Instructional Center at Tours Aerodrome in Central France in twenty-five trucks, and established themselves on the field.   At the time there were only two wooden barracks partially completed at the site and it was not yet ready for use.   The Americans slept in their trucks that night, being awakened at 2:30am by a German air raid by Gotha bombers.  Later that day, the Americans completed the two barracks and started construction on a third one.   Eventually the facility was covered into a large aviation facility generally known as Orly Aerodrome, with scores of buildings, 78 aircraft hangars,  several kilometres of cinder and gravel roads,  water, sewer, electrical and telephone facilities.   On Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, there were 323 Officers and 2,283 enlisted men assigned.
  The organizational structure included three main groups: Airplane Operations; Engineering, and Post Operations, which were, in turn, sub-divided into various Divisions and Sections.  A parts Depot (Air Depot No. 4), was never developed as such, and was used basically for parts storage to support the internal operations of Orly Field.  The Post Operations group was concerned with the administration of the facility, such as security, provost, fire marshal,  quartermaster department, the post office (APO 702) and other miscellaneous offices.   During 1918, construction was an ongoing process at Orly and the war ended before it was fully completed.  The Engineering Department  was responsible for the various shops needed to repair aircraft.  Aircraft rigging,  installing aircraft engines, overhauling engines, sheet metal fabrication,  electronics, carpentry,  fuselage and wing repairs,  rubber and tire vulcanizing and the like were performed by the unit.
  Aircraft Operations
  The first meaningful use of Orly Aerodrome with the arrival of the first aircraft on 6 April 1918, when three Sopwith 1A2s landed at the field from Le Bourget Airport.  The first aircraft was flown out on 20 April.  During the first month of operation, a total of 37 aircraft were flown from Orly to the Front and to various training schools.  At this early stage of operations, there were still few personnel assigned and much of the equipment for the Park had not yet arrived.    The operations were very much makeshift until June, when the number of personnel had increased and considerably more equipment was available.
       
  New aircraft aeeiving for acceptance at Orly were first directed to the Receiving Division.  There were several sections for the various types of aircraft (SPAD, Sopwith, Salmson, etc.), being received.   There, the section would perform an cursory inspection of the aircraft and determine if it needed additional equipment.  If it needed a Radio, for example, it was transferred to the Radio Section.   If it needed armament, it was sent to the Armament Section, etc.   Once any necessary equipment was installed,  the aircraft then was sent to the Inspection Section for a careful inspection to see that all corrections and any repairs necessary to the aircraft were made to insure it was ready for dispatch.    After the inspection was passed, a thirty-minute flight test was made of the aircraft to verify its readiness.
  Once fully inspected and flight-tested, the aircraft would either be flown out by ferry pilots assigned to the Dispatch Section to the 1st Air Depot for eventual combat operations or to one of the Training Schools.  Planes to be sent directly into combat were sent fully equipped, while aircraft being sent as replacements were, as a rule, sent out partially or not equipped because guns, radios and other equipment could be installed either by the 1st Air Depot or the combat squadrons from stocks taken from salvaged planes there. By the time of the Armistice, the Air Service Acceptance Park No. 1 dispatched 1,809 aircraft, fully equipped and 332 planes unequipped.  The average length of time 
caption: Layout of the main area of the Air Service Acceptance Park
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