It’s hard to miss on the side of Highway 99. A polished aluminum bomber that looks like it’s ready to taxi out onto the highway. Today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots, the story of Tulare’s Mefford Field and the B-17 bomber that’s been a roadside attraction there since 1958.
The history of the Tulare Municipal Airport goes all the way back to 1927, when the site south of the city of Tulare welcomed its first aircraft. Things really got rolling a little over a decade later. In advance of America entering World War II, the Army Air Corps needed a LOT of new pilots. So in 1940, they contracted with private aviation schools, including noted stunt pilot and barnstormer Tex Rankin.
He established an operation at the Tulare Airport, and later built his own Rankin Field a few miles to the east. Rankin trained over 10,000 cadets. After the war, the county developed a plan for the airport, and renamed it the Tulare Airpark. The City of Tulare purchased it in 1971, and a decade later, named the airport after then 80-year-old city councilmember and World War II aviator Oliver Mefford.
As for the B-17, it was flown to Tulare in 1958 by Tulare’s own Air Force General Maurice Preston. It’s been on display ever since. It was later joined by a Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom. For years it was poorly maintained, suffering damage from vandals, corrosion and traffic accidents. In recent years the airplane was restored and polished.
And while the plane known as Preston’s Pride was built too late to see action in World War II, it has its own special history. In 1946, the plane participated in the historic atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. It was outfitted as a flying control center for the remote-control drones that flew through the atomic blast. It’s a fascinating piece of history, on the side of Highway 99.
