Floyd Bennett Field Park (New York City, New York)

 airport, museum, park, military, interesting place, historic district

Also known as Naval Air Station New York from 1942 till 1971 and as Coast Guard Air Station Brooklyn from 1936 till 1998. It was New York City's first municipal airport.

Famed aviator Wiley Post twice used the field for record-breaking 'round-the-world flights, and developed or adapted technology (such as the Sperry autopilot) there to aid him. Famous aviatrixes of the era, such as Jackie Cochran, Laura Ingalls, and even Amelia Earhart broke records at this airfield. Howard Hughes also used Floyd Bennett Field as the start and finish of his July 1938 record-setting circumnavigation of the globe in ninety-one hours (as depicted in the 2004 film The Aviator). Media-savvy pilot Roscoe Turner was also a frequent visitor at this airfield, often in conjunction with record-breaking flights.

Floyd Bennett Field's most storied flight was probably that of Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan who, in 1938, after repeatedly being denied permission by the authorities to attempt a non-stop flight to Ireland, "accidentally" crossed the Atlantic in a second-hand surplus aircraft on a flight registered to go to California. In the midst of the Great Depression a hero-starved nation hailed Corrigan for his "accident", even giving him a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan upon his return.

The U.S. Navy took over the facility during World War II and used it as a base for anti-submarine patrols in the critical New York/Long Island convoy assembly areas.

On July 16, 1957, then-Major John H. Glenn, Jr., USMC, set the Transcontinental air speed record, flying an F8U-1 Crusader from NAS Los Alamitos, California to NAS New York - Floyd Bennett Field, in 3 hours, 23 minutes, and 8.4 seconds. Project Bullet, as the mission was called, provided both the first transcontinental flight to average supersonic speed, and the first continuous transcontinental panoramic photograph of the United States. Glenn was awarded his fifth Distinguished Flying Cross for the mission.

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