Researcher offers clues on new Area 51 name

[unhappycamper]

Researcher offers clues on new Area 51 name
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jan 23, 2008 18:55:19 EST

The name “Homey Airport” — which reportedly is the new official designation for the top-secret Nevada military installation better known as Area 51 — could have its origins in the annals of top-secret aviation, one Area 51 enthusiast said.

Joerg Arnu, a Las Vegas software developer and military aviation buff, said “Homey Airport” is a term that could have been working its way through records and bureaucracies since the 1960s when CIA pilots first began flying the then-top secret A-12 spy plane, a highly classified version of the supersonic jet that flew from Area 51 and is better known to the public as the SR-71 Blackbird.

Because the base near the dry lake bed at Groom Lake, Nev., was so secret, A-12 pilots couldn’t even list it on their flight logs, Arnu said, so instead they listed “Home Plate” as their airport of origin. It’s possible that subsequent pilots also making secret flights shortened the “home plate” designation over the years to “Homey,” Arnu said, which then entered the lexicon of the insular corps of clandestine military and defense workers.

The “Homey” moniker made its first publicly accessible appearance in a service bulletin distributed by the aerospace firm Honeywell, associated with the company’s Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, a technology built into aircraft to help them avoid collisions with obstacles or terrain while taxiing.

In that January 2005 bulletin, Arnu said, Honeywell listed a slew of private airports with which the gear was newly compatible, including a field called “XTA,” listed in “Homey, U.S.A.” There are no Nevada towns called “Homey,” or at least none with airports. The information in the system listed with that designation coincides exactly with the location of the runways at Area 51.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/airforce_area51_080123w/