By the end of World War II, more than 6,000 American pilots had learned to fly gliders. Of that total, 1,654 were trained at the Twenty-Nine Palms Air Academy — the wartime identity of a civilian airstrip that began as a 3,000-foot runway built on the edge of a dry lake in 1939.
The airfield started simply: a civil airport named Twenty Nine Palms Airfield, built on the dry surface of Mesquite Lake at the southeast edge of the lakebed. By 1939, the dirt runway was operational, a modest facility serving the sparse desert community. Then January 1, 1942 arrived, and the Army Air Forces took over.
Renamed Condor Field, the base became part of the United States Army Air Forces Contract Flying School network under the authority of General Henry H. Arnold. The Army built an 1,800-by-3,000-foot landing mat and opened the Twenty-Nine Palms Air Academy. Four auxiliary fields supported the operation. Training aircraft included Fairchild PT-19s for primary instruction, PT-17 Stearmans, a few P-40 Warhawks, and ultimately the Waco CG-4 assault glider — the workhorse that would carry troops into Sicily, Normandy, and the Rhine crossing. Basic flight training ran from March 1943 until April 1944. When the Normandy invasion rendered large-scale glider training less critical, the academy closed. The Navy arrived late in 1944, renamed the airfield Twentynine Palms Naval Auxiliary Air Station, and built a new runway of Marston Matting on the dry lake surface because the original mat was too weak for their Lockheed Venturas and Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateers.
After the Navy closed in October 1945, the airfield briefly returned to civilian use with a paved 4,000-foot runway. Then the Korean War created new demand. In 1952, Condor Field reopened as the core of what would become Marine Corps Training Center Twentynine Palms. A 6,000-foot steel-mat runway was added for jet and cargo traffic. The installation grew into the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center — today the largest Marine base in the United States. When a new expeditionary airfield was built eight miles northwest in 1976, Condor Field's operational life ended. By 1979, it was closed permanently, the old site absorbed into the base's training complex near the main entrance off Adobe Road. The landing mat, the lakebed, the memory of 1,654 newly trained glider pilots — all are still out there somewhere, beneath decades of desert.
Located at 34.23°N, 116.06°W within the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms. The original Condor Field site is near the main base entrance off Adobe Road. The current MCAGCC expeditionary airfield (IATA: TNP) is 8 miles northwest. Restricted airspace covers much of the base — check NOTAMs before approach. The dry lake surface of Mesquite Lake is visible from altitude as a pale, flat expanse.