Sweetwater, TX
The only all-female military air base in American history. The Women Airforce Service Pilots — the WASP — trained 1,074 women here from 1943-1944 to fly every type of military aircraft, freeing male pilots for combat. They flew every plane the AAF had: B-26 Marauders, B-29s, P-47s, P-51s, AT-6s. 38 WASP were killed in service. Despite logging 60 million miles, they were not granted military status until 1977 or the Congressional Gold Medal until 2010. The National WASP WWII Museum in Hangar 1 preserves their legacy. The original triangular WWII runway layout is still in use. Class E.
During WWII, Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas was the only all-female military air base in American history. The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) trained here from 1943 to 1944, flying every type of military aircraft to free male pilots for combat. These women ferried bombers, towed targets for live gunnery practice, and tested repaired aircraft — 38 were killed in service. Despite flying over 60 million miles, the WASP weren't granted military status until 1977 and didn't receive the Congressional Gold Medal until 2010. The National WASP WWII Museum in Hangar 1 at Avenger Field preserves their legacy. The airport (KSWW) is still active.
On the grounds of KLBB sits a museum dedicated to one of the most overlooked combat roles of World War II: the American glider pilots who trained at South Plains Army Airfield (now KLBB) from 1942 to 1945 and flew engineless Waco CG-4A gliders into Sicily, Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Rhine crossing, Burma, and the Philippines. The museum holds a fully restored CG-4A — 48 feet long, 83-foot wingspan, wood and fabric — and tells the story of how 6,000 men were trained at Lubbock to fly an aircraft with no engine on a single one-way combat mission. The Silent Wings Memorial wall lists every glider pilot killed in action. Easy walk from the FBO ramp.
A massive pink granite dome rising 425 feet above the Texas Hill Country. The exposed batholith covers 640 acres and is over 1 billion years old — one of the oldest exposed rock surfaces in North America. Native Americans believed the rock was enchanted because it groans and creaks at night (thermal expansion). The dome is unmistakable from the air — a bare pink hemisphere surrounded by green oak woodland. Nearby Fredericksburg was founded by German settlers in 1846.
Palo Duro Canyon is 120 miles long, 20 miles wide, and 800 feet deep — the second-largest canyon in the United States after the Grand Canyon. From the air, the Texas Panhandle's almost supernatural flatness is interrupted without warning by this massive gash in the earth. The color palette is stunning: red, orange, and yellow layers of Permian-age rock against the endless tan of the Llano Estacado above. The 'Lighthouse' rock formation — a distinctive hoodoo — is visible from altitude. The canyon was the site of the decisive 1874 Red River War battle where Colonel Ranald Mackenzie destroyed a Comanche horse herd, ending the Southern Plains Indian Wars.