Former Langanes Air Station (H-2) (Heidharhofn)

 abandoned / shut down, former air force base, early warning radar

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Established in 1951 atop a windswept cliff on the Northeastern tip of Iceland, the Langanes Air Station was one of four defensive radar sites placed at the four corners of Iceland to provide airspace monitoring over the strategically important area known as the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap. Originally consisting of temporary structures and a mobile radar trailer, the site was greatly expanded beginning in 1952 and eventually consisted of fifteen separate dormitory, support and operations buildings nestled into the lee of the cliffside mountain.

Manned by the 667th Air Control Squadron and equipped with AN/FPS-3 and AN/FPS-20 radars located at the promontory of the mountain, the site provided General Surveillance Radar services to US Air Force and NATO forces tracking Soviet Aircraft operating over the GIUK Gap for the next nine years without incident. A severe winter storm in January of 1961 lashed the station with heavy winds and snow for several days, causing the protective radomes on both the AN/FPS-3 and AN/FPS-20 to be destroyed and allowing both transmitters to be badly damaged by snow and ice. Forced offline in the aftermath of the storm, the decision was made to terminate all radar surveillance operations at the site and the men of the 667th Air Control Squadron were relocated to the Hofn Air Station on Icelands' Southeast coast.

Transferred to the operational control of the US Navy under NATO direction thereafter, the site became a radio transmission and ocean monitoring site for US and NATO Submarines and ASW aircraft operating in the North Atlantic through the end of the Cold War. Abandoned by 1995, the site was eventually stripped of its infrastructure, save the support base for the AN/FPS-20 radar and concrete footings, and has since been left to the elements.

radomes.org/museum/showsite.php?site=Langanes+AS,+IS