Eielson Air Force Base
Air base in Fairbanks North Star Borough, AlaskaWikipedia
31
MENTIONS
11
EPISODES
9
PODCASTS
Search complete. 31 mentions across 11 episodes found for "Eielson Air Force Base".
Sep 25, 2026
Sarah HollisterSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
That's why it's like a hunting area, too.
Shelby HerbertCORRESPONDENT
Sarah Hollister is walking me down a trail leading to a pond outside Eielson Air Force Base, close to her neighborhood.
Shelby HerbertCORRESPONDENT
It's part of a military recreation area that's sandwiched between the city of Fairbanks and the base.
Shelby HerbertCORRESPONDENT
Civilians and service members alike come out here to hike and fish, but a passing military helicopter reminds us of exactly where we are.
Philip BarryGUEST
So Fort Meade opened the door and having the opportunity to do those contracting facility roles with the infrastructure of the facility I was with.
Philip BarryGUEST
After that, I received orders to Eielson Air Force Base and was met with an abrupt change of pace because I was back at a squadron, back with some of the nuances that exist in a squadron that we're all very familiar with.
Philip BarryGUEST
And Eielson was going through major changes at the time.
DanHOST
That's
Philip BarryGUEST
valid.
Philip BarryGUEST
But I loved it, right? Like, I mean, heck, four of my groomsmen were all maintainers, right? So four out of the six.
Philip BarryGUEST
So I loved it.
Philip BarryGUEST
Went back to the F-16s, so the aggressors at Eielson.
Mike JonesGUEST
So the, uh, the only, the only school...
Mike JonesGUEST
You go to one school after you finish your SERE specialist training, um, up towards I- u- Eielson Air Force Base up in Alaska, and you head up to Deadhorse, Alaska, if you know that area, um, for your extreme winter survival.
Mike JonesGUEST
So that's like the, when we got down to, like, negative 60, negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and, uh, that was like-
Shawn RyanHOST
I'm sorry, how cold?
Ava WhiteHOST
I'm Ava White.
Ava WhiteHOST
The Air Force is asking for public input on a plan to begin work in an area on Eielson Air Force Base where a small nuclear reactor would be located, KUAC's Temelis reports.
Tim EllisCORRESPONDENT
Ever since the 1950s, a 20-megawatt coal-fired heat and power plant has provided energy for Eielson.
Tim EllisCORRESPONDENT
But if all goes according to plan, the base would be the first U.S. military installation to be powered, at least partly, by a 5-megawatt microreactor.
Tail DraggerHOST
You know this country.
Tail DraggerHOST
Your name is Carl Ben Eielson.
Tail DraggerHOST
You're 32 years old.
Tail DraggerHOST
You're not coming home.
Tail DraggerHOST
When the rivers froze, you walked or you waited.
Tail DraggerHOST
Supplies arrived on a schedule that had nothing to do with what people needed and everything to do with what the terrain would allow.
Tail DraggerHOST
Eielson looked at all of it and saw the problem the airplane was born to solve.
Tail DraggerHOST
In 1924, he convinced the post office department in Washington to let him try running airmail in Alaska.
TowerHOST
He was killed in November of 1929 at age 32 while attempting a rescue mission near the Siberian coast in deteriorating weather.
TowerHOST
The state named a major Air Force installation after him, Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks.
TowerHOST
But his real legacy is visible any time a float plane pushes off a dock somewhere in the interior and heads for a village that no road has ever reached.
TowerHOST
Let us talk about Lake Hood.
Dale PurcellNARRATOR
The glacier gave them nothing.
Dale PurcellNARRATOR
I was debriefed at Eielson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks by two men in a room without windows.
Dale PurcellNARRATOR
They made me go through what I’d found twice, then took Frank’s signal data and my survey equipment.
Dale PurcellNARRATOR
The documents I’d recovered went with them, too.
Nikki YoungHOST
But there was also a practical problem looming over this new relationship.
Nikki YoungHOST
Josh was being sent to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska.
Nikki YoungHOST
That's more than 3,000 miles away from Tulsa.
Nikki YoungHOST
And if Amber wanted to move with him and live with him in military housing, being his girlfriend wasn't going to cut it.
Tail DraggerHOST
In February of 1950, the weight of that readiness became visible in a different way.
Tail DraggerHOST
A B-36 from Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska was flying a simulated bombing mission over the Pacific when it encountered severe icing.
Tail DraggerHOST
Three of the six engines caught fire.
Tail DraggerHOST
The aircraft commander, fighting to keep the aircraft controllable, ordered the nuclear weapon jettisoned over the ocean.
Tail DraggerHOST
People who lived there understood they were, in a very real sense, living on their own terms in a country that hadn't fully decided what it was yet.
Tail DraggerHOST
Eielson was born in Hatton, North Dakota, in 1897.
Tail DraggerHOST
He learned to fly during the First World War, trained in Texas, and the armistice came before he could do much with that training.
Tail DraggerHOST
He spent a few years trying to figure out what came next, and somewhere in that process he ended up in Fairbanks Teaching School in 1922.
Tail DraggerHOST
He made that case over and over again until the Postal Service finally awarded him a contract in early 1924.
Tail DraggerHOST
The first flight went on February 7, 1924.
Tail DraggerHOST
Eielson climbed into a de Havilland biplane, a leftover from the war, open cockpit, minimal instrumentation, no heat whatsoever.
Tail DraggerHOST
The temperature in Fairbanks that morning was around 50 below zero Fahrenheit.
1 more episode mentions Eielson Air Force Base.
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