Lemoore Naval Air Station, California

Lemoore Naval Air Station is home port for the Pacific Fleet's Strike Fighter Jet Aircraft community. Many of the Navy's west coast F/A-18 Strike Fighter Squadrons are housed there. The base, located south of Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley, encompasses 29,794 acres. There are three basic areas at NAS Lemoore; operations, administration and housing. In the operations area are two 13,500 foot runways, aircraft hangars and parking aprons, maintenance facilities, ordnance storage, an operations building with control tower, and other structures. NAS Lemoore is a training facility for Navy fighter pilots, and often collaborates with NAS Fallon, which is a similar facility in Nevada. The helicopter-equipped Search and Rescue team based at NAS Lemoore is quite busy rescuing hikers and backpackers from the nearby Mount Whitney vicinity, and from the surrounding recreational area of the southern Sierras.