The Air Force will end 73 years of history at the former site of Lowry AFB, Colo., as the Air Reserve Personnel Center, its last remaining military tenant, shifts to Buckley Air Force Base, also in the Denver suburb of Aurora, next month. Opened in 1938 as a training base for Army Air Corps bomber crews, Lowry famously served as Dwight Eisenhower’s summer office during his time as President, and hosted the Air Force Academy from 1955 until completion of the present facilities near Colorado Springs in 1958. The base has been steadily re-developed as commercial and residential space since its closure in 1994, reports the Associated Press (via Westport News). ARPC personnel are due to move from Lowry to the center’s new $17 million, 80,000-square-foot headquarters at Buckley on Aug. 1. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new facility took place on Tuesday.
While the U.S. Air Force plans to spend big and make Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones an essential part of its tactical fleet in the near future, the U.S. Navy is working to team manned and unmanned aircraft as well.