Sky Harbor ...

The desert that seemed so formidable a barrier to the horse and stage coach travelers a few decades ago is being mastered today by the pulsating engines of giant aircraft.

Scientific airports play momentary hosts scores of times daily to monster, modern planes bringing passengers and freight from distant points. Arizona's desert air resounds with the roar of mighty ships ticketed to a myriad of distant ports.

The land of the savage red man, the land that was the pioneering synonym for all that was hazardous and cruel, today is spanned as rapidly and casually as one visits a neighborhood grocery store.

But this, too, is a result of pioneering.

Standing at the top in the matter of expansion as well as safety in flying is Sky Harbor Airport of Phoenix Today it shows among the highest transient and commercial air traffic figures of any aviation center in the world.

It is almost an hourly port of call for the transports of American Airlines and Trans-World Airlines. And it is "home" for ARIZONA AIRWAYS, whose DC3s ferry passengers and air freight to all parts of the nation's baby state.

Only last fall Phoenicians voted more than two to one in favor of a $1,100,000 bond issue to make possiblewith proferred federal funds a $4,500,000 improvement program there. Even the huge bond issue is not expected to add to the city's tax load, since Sky Harbor has been a money-maker even with inadequate facilities.

Yet it started inauspiciously as a cow pasture.

Back in the "barnstorming" days when the old Curtis Orioles competed with the 0X5 Canuck and ThomasMorse in the first Dayton, O., Air Races; when Charles A. Lindbergh still was dreaming of flying the Atlantic, a small group of Phoenix aviation enthusiasts were zooming skyward from that "cow pasture" field-now the fine Sky Harbor port.

To this embryonic group flying was a hobby. They loved it, lived it, believed in it; steadfastly contended it was to become "a big thing."

Visualizing the future rapid growth of aviation and need for more adequate flying facilities, they prevailed upon Phoenix officials to purchase land for establishment of a municipal airport. Sky Harbor came into being. To complement activities of the sportsmen-fliers, a municipal aviation commission was organized. Its first membership included Frank Beer, A. Lee Moore and Walter T. Martin, all prominent business and professional men.

At first there was but a single hangar, more than adequate for the handful of planes maintained by local flying enthusiasts and the few transient aircraft pausing to refuel or for an overnight stop. Then came World War II, and Sky Harbor began to suffer growing pains. The Army began using Sky Harbor as a ferry command relay point, until it developed its own field near Coolidge. The Navy Air Transport Service made Phoenix a stop on its transcontinental route. Other military craft arriving and departing added to the traffic load.

But months before Pearl Harbor the city's aeronautics officials were studying a "master plan" based on standards formulated by the Civil Aeronautics Administration to provide an airport that could handle increasing air traffic adequately and safely for years to come. They knew only too well that a modern airport was as vital to air transportation as the improved highway is to the auto and truck, or stations and yards to rail trans port.

With war's end not too far in the background, Walter Fulkerson, Sky Harbor manager, can report creation of a new parking lot for aircraft business firms which dimin ishes traffic hazards around the taxi-ways airplanes follow to the landing strips; completion of a 2,000-foot extension to the main East-West runway to make it more than a mile long so it will accommodate huge airliners. and use of the northeastern section of the field-formerly a Navy barrack area by a variety of aircraft firms, among them crop-dusting companies, plane repair shops, flying schools. the Civil Air Patrol and small charter services.

Lengthening of the East-West runway, an asphaltic concrete strip 140 feet wide, brought 50-passenger, four-engine transcontinental planes winging into the Arizona capitol to write still another chapter in the state's air transport pioneering.

The first Phoenix visit of a passenger-carrying Constellation, TWA's Star of India, came in late December, fulfilling another dream of Jack Frye, TWA president, who had launched his commercial aviation career "way back when" with a dinky little airline from Phoenix to Los Angeles.

Carrying 45 passengers and several tons of mail, cargo and gasoline, the Star of India was but four hours out of Kansas City when it roared in over Sky Harbor. And schedules of the giant "Sky Masters" which now regularly visit Phoenix have cut from 15½ to less than 12 hours the flying time between Arizona and the East coast.

But Phoenix aviation enthusiasts aren't yet ready to rest on their laurels and watch the transports fly by. Successful culmination of an airport and aviation development for Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun that will inject millions of dollars into local business channels now is clearly in sight.

All-around facilities are to be established for all classes of aircraft, including airlines, private pilots, operators, feeder lines, transients and airfreight movers.

A huge building area, roughly twelve square blocks, is to replace the present administration site. Private hangars for 14 non-commercial planes, aircraft showrooms, smart shops, a hotel and an automobile garage are envisioned for this area.

Five hangars are planned to supplement the present two.

The three existing runways, ranging from 4,000 to 6,500 feet, will be replaced or extended by two of 7,000 feet and a third 7,282 feet in length, capable of handling 100,000-pound freight and passenger ships already in service.

About 1,000 acres will be encompassed by the new Sky Harbor, as compared to the present 400. Another 400 acres will be added if necessary.

Warehouse, cold storage and quick-freeze space for handling of perishable air freight at the field is included in the development plan. These facilities will connect by rail with the nearby Southern Pacific line.

Ten huge transport planes may park on the field side of the administration building while being loaded and fueled once the expansion is completed. Parking space for a half-dozen other large planes will be added if the need arises.

Sky Harbor also will figure in a regional airport plan for territory within a 25-mile radius of Phoenix. It calls for six areas in which additional small airports will take care of anticipated private flying.

Already Sky Harbor has a $40,000 airport restaurant operated by Skychefs, Inc., a subsidiary of American Airlines, serving not only commercial airlines passengers but many persons employed at the municipal field. Its main dining room has table and counter facilities for 64 persons, compared to the ten which a former lunch room was equipped to serve.

Phoenicians long have known that their city, a cross-Last December Sky Harbor handled more air traffic than any other airport in the Nation. "It is the weather."