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Gunner's Trail Multi-Cache

Hidden : 2/16/2013
Difficulty:
3 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

Gunner's Trail is a 1.8 mile trail in the Wild Turkey Strand Preserve.  If you are not able to do the full length, turn left at the black arrow pointing right at the beginning of the circular loop, making the trip a .6 mile round trip.  The path is entirely paved and wheelchair acccessible if you do the shorter route.  Gather information from the 4 marked locations and use that numerical data to solve the puzzle, giving you the location of the cache.

This location was once part of the Buckingham Army Air Field's Flexible Gunnery School.  The main objective for the operation was to train recruits as turret gunners assigned to bomber planes flying over the European and Pacific Theaters.  It's hard to imagine in this rural area that by the war's end, more than 50,000 gunners had trained here.  The airfield and gunnery school included runways and taxiways, a railway, rifle and small arms ranges, skeet and trap shooting ranges, ground moving target ranges, parachute/ditch training grounds, and hundreds of buildings.

At the starting coordinates (wooden sign in parking lot):
Buckingham Army Air Field was built in A.
The airfield was deactivated in B.
All buildings were razed in C.


At the trailhead:
The Kalamazoo car was outfitted with a E cyclinder auto engine to propel it around the track.
F turrets with handheld guns were used in each range.
The area behind the range was restricted for G miles although a few grazing cows were accidently killed.
After completing a H week course, graduates were assigned to various bomber groups.

At Reference Point 1:
discarded gun turrets were found in this area.
At Reference Point 2:
J small holes covered with screens likely served as ventilation. 

Now do the math:  B-A = K    C-B = L    H-L = M    K-L = N

The final coordinates are:  N 26 KE.LDM    W 081 GN.DHM

To learn more about the natural aspects of this area, visit the Earthcache GC42467 - Headwaters of the Estero River.  



Additional Hints (No hints available.)