Hadley Field, South Plainfield, NJ
40.55 North / 74.43 West (Southwest
of New York, NY)
As Post Office plans for
inaugurating night airmail progressed, it became apparent that New
York's Hazlehurst Field, often blanketed in fog & smoke, proved
sadly inadequate.
What was needed was an area
allowing clear approach from all directions and the establishment
of improved terminal facilities.
Officials set out locating the
ideal location; in short order they found one, not in New York but
in neighboring New Jersey.
On November 1, 1924, John R.
Hadley, Sr. leased to the Post Office seventy-seven acres of level
ground five miles from New Brunswick, NJ, for a new landing field
to be called Hadley Field.
Immediately, preparations began,
land was cleared, radio masts erected, boundary lights installed,
and provisions established for floodlights & revolving
beacons.
So rapid was the construction that
by December 15 daytime transcontinental operations shifted from
Hazlehurst to Hadley.
On the night of July 1, 1925,
500,000,000-candlepower arc floodlights swept the field for nearly
a mile in half a circle.
A powerful searchlight stood on top
of a hangar revolving six times a minute.
All was in readiness for the
inaugural night flight for which more than 15,000 people had turned
out to watch Dean Smith & J.D. Hill lift into a moonlit sky on
their way to Cleveland.
As described by Dean Smith in "By
the Seat of My Pants", after the goodbyes & handshakes trouble
awaited him:
"...I climbed in the DH-4. The
newsreel cameras were grinding.
I ran up the engine & roared
down the field.
As I was still climbing, not yet a
hundred feet high, the engine suddenly revved down as though the
throttle had been pulled back.
Praise be, I managed to make a full
one-eighty turn & straighten out, floating back in over the
fence, the engine not quite dead.
Examination disclosed that a pin
connection in the throttle rod had broken, and the butterfly valve
in the carburetor had consequently slipped back.
That 1st night the rod
was quickly repaired and I took off toward Bellefonte with little
total delay."
Smith's problems were far from
over.
Engine failure forced him down
again near Kylertown, PA.
Dropping his parachute flare, he
landed in a small emergency field.
Two hours later he left for
Cleveland in another plane but ran out of gas fifteen minutes short
of Cleveland & crashed landed, unhurt but upside down with
crumpled wings in a farmer's vineyard.
"Hmm," the farmer said looking at
the crash, "Do you always land this way?"
J.D. Hill had better luck than
Smith, his mail got through, and the 1st inaugural
flight out of Hadley Field was deemed a success.
According to the
History of
South Plainfield,
"Bendix Aviation experimental
planes & helicopters were tested at Hadley Airport."
Ed Wolf recalled, “Hadley
Airport... that's where I learned how to fly in 1955.
After getting my license, I owned 3
different airplanes which I kept there.
A PT-19 which I
kept hangared, an
Aeronca 7AC & a Cessna 140 which
were tied down on the field.
Hadley Field was still depicted as
an active airfield
on
the 1967 NY Local Aeronautical
Chart
(courtesy of Mike
Keefe).
It was described as having 3 turf
runways, with the longest being 2,345'.
After 44 years, Hadley Field was
closed in 1968.
According to Tom Beamer, "After it
closed there was a big auction (unfortunately I didn't
attend).
Among the items auctioned were
parts from mailplanes of the
1920s."
In a
by the New Jersey General Aviation
Study Commission's Subcommittee on Airport Closings, reasons were
given for the closing of 13 New Jersey general aviation
airports.
According to the report, "Hadley
Airport would have needed a costly upgrade in order to
survive.
The community was opposed to
preservation of the airport and the land was sold to a developer,
who erected a shopping center, industrial park, and
hotel."
Hadley Field was no longer depicted
at all on the 1972 NY Terminal Control Area Aeronautical Chart, and
a 1972 aerial view showed that it had been covered with new
construction, with not a trace remaining of the former
airport.
According to Douglas Wright, "The
name lives on; at least, immortalized in the name of the shopping
mall that covers part of the site."
Peter Angelou reported in 2005,
“Both of the hangers that were located at Hadley were sold &
moved to Blairstown Airport where they were both erected... only
one was completed... the other having only the framework
erected.
It still is sitting there today...
'bare boned'.”
The site of Hadley Field is located
at the intersection of Route 529 & Hadley Road (appropriately
enough).
See also:
http://www.airmailpioneers.org/history/HadleyField.htm
…………………………………………………………..
In 1955 Hadley Field gained an
unusual neighbor - an Army Nike surface-to-air missile
battery.
South Plainfield Battery NY-65 was a 2-magazine Nike missile
battery, first manned by Regular Army units & later by the NJ
Army National Guard.
The Integrated Fire Control Site
for the Nike battery was located east of Durham Avenue
The Launch Site was located at the
intersection of Hadley Road & Durham Avenue, close to the
southern edge of Hadley Field.
The South Plainfield battery was
originally equipped with 20 first-generation Nike Ajax
missiles.
However, NY-65 was chosen as one of
a subset of Nike batteries to be upgraded to the significantly more
capable 2nd-generation Nike Hercules missile, the first
of which arrived at the NY-65 Battery in 1961.
Battery NY-65 was eventually
equipped with 12 Nike Hercules missiles.
The South Plainfield Nike battery
remained operational until 1971.
A 1972 aerial view showed the
above-ground portion of the missile launchers had been removed, but
the site otherwise remained intact.
All remains of the Nike missile
site were subsequently obliterated (just like the historic Hadley
Field).