Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma

A 5,000-acre multi-service military base, located in the middle of Oklahoma, with a variety of functions, but primarily serves as one of the largest aircraft maintenance sites in the nation. Home of the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center (ALC), one of five major aircraft maintenance and supply centers in the Air Force. Home also to an Air Force combat communications support fleet of AWACS-type aircraft, and a major Navy communication unit, which flies 16 large aircraft to support nuclear-equipped submarine communications. Some of the large aircraft production buildings on base were once known as Air Force Plant 5, one of 85 or so aircraft, rocket, and missile production facilities, designated as critical for the Air Force, from around 1947 to the mid 1960s. The largest of the Plant 5 structures on base is a building that is 3,500 feet long, and covers close to 3 million square feet, on the east side of the base. It made transport aircraft in WWII, and is in use today as part of the military aircraft maintenance center. A 2.5 million square foot complex on the southwest side of the base, formerly General Motors Oklahoma City Assembly Plant, is now the Tinker Aerospace Complex, and is also a military aircraft maintenance center.