Around 1986, I was poking around the back of the site one evening by myself, and got stuck in the mud -- in my girlfriend`s father`s car! I had no legit reason to be on the grounds in the first place... After trying to free myself for about 2 hours on a cold, Fall evening, I very reluctantly had to go up to the caretaker`s door, not knowing what the heck I was going to say. I thoguht for sure he`d call the police, and since the car wasn`t registered in my name, AND just to give me extra punishment for screwing around back there, the cops would have called my girlfriends dad, explain what the deal was, and ask if I did have permission to have his car, etc. I was very apologetic to the caretaker for disturbing his Sunday evening, and explained my vehicle was stuck in the mud (without volunteering WHY I was on the property), he asked me "Are you from the Rad Lab?" and I said "YES!!!" so that was that, he called for a wrecker, and didn`t lock up the gate as they normally do around dusk...

Anyway, UofM uses some of the old buildings for misc. storage, the UofM Radiation Lab does some radio testing (mostly EMI/RFI stuff, including testing cars), and something relatively new since the mid-1990s or so, UofM has other ventures using the grounds -- the Civil Air Patrol might still have the local Willow Run chapter office there (didn`t see the sign for it on Friday, but I saw it when poking around there around 1999), and it looks like an EMI/RFI consulting firm has an office there too.

UofM does maintain a radioactive waste storage facility back in a discrete part of the site. I`d poked around there in the mid or late 1980s, and remember it being an isolated cinderblock building set back in the forested area. I contemplated making a quick check of it again on Friday, but decided it wouldn`t be prudent to risk being caught criminally trespassing at a remote site used to store radioactive waste in these post-9/11 days. I WILL do it though, because now I`m curious as to whether the structure is from the AFS era or not.

One thing I have NOT seen and know NOTHING about is visible in your overhead imagery of the site -- a clearing in the forest to the south of the main AFS compound. It shows a clearing, some recent excavation, and some sort of structure. For reference, the radioactive waste storage site would be a couple hundred yards SE of the unknown place in the image -- the dirt access road for it is somewhat visible (especially in the B&W image) to the right. In the Topozone image, what`s now the radwaste site would be under the second W in `Willow,` and the TopoZone map clearly shows the road to it. The same TopoZone image also clearly shows the access road off Beck Rd that leads to the mystery site within the AFS compound. That access gate clearly has not been used for anything in many years, so I`m really curious as to what the deal is...

Would Willow Run AFS have had a GATR? If so, the isolated old structures in the compound were probably way too close to be it.

One of the neater photos (two, a distant show & a close-up) are of some old antenna pedestal in the open grassy field to on the E side of the AFS compound (it`s where I got stuck in the mud...). There are actually two of these pedestals in that field. I do not know for sure that these pedestals date back to the AFS operation. As I`ve mentioned before, the University of Michigan has been useing the grounds for misc EMI/RFI testing for years. Each time I`ve gone to the old AFS (about 8 times in the past 15 years) I`ve always seen a variety of strange VHF/UHF/microwave antennas temporarily set up in some of the fields.

Directly across the street (Beck Road) is the eastern side of Willow Run Airport, formerly Willow Run AAF. The Yankee Air Force museum is in a hanger about 1 mile E of the old AFS.