Pease Air Force Base Entrance

Pease Air Force Base entrance, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Editor Dan Wise asked me to do the cover illustration for Business New Hampshire magazine’s July 1989 issue on Pease’s makeover from a SAC base to a industrial/office park. It’s done with markers and colored pencils, a style I use for architectural renderings (see this page of my website for more in that technique). This style has been made very popular by Michael Doyle’s book “Color Drawing”, which is recommended for anyone who wants to learn a very accessible rendering technique.

Pease’s entrance was far more interesting when it was an air base than afterwards. This drawing shows the handsome little guard house that was there, and also one of several airplanes that were parked, museum fashion, out on the lawn. A rather sinister reference to the purpose of the place was visible in the mushroom cloud insignia for one of the military units stationed there (just barely visible on the sign in this drawing). Here you can see a much better view of that insignia and also photos of Pease’s military history. Here is more history on a page which also includes a bomb’s eye view of the base from about two miles up.

5 thoughts on “Pease Air Force Base Entrance

  1. Wow…and just think I use to live right on the other side of those bushes/trees behind that plane! Is there anyway you could give me a detailed description of where that guard house is located and on which road. I was a kid then when we lived on Pease AFB and I am trying to locate our old house on some map programs that somehow are still using some old Sat Images ( yes some are still using some old ones as I can find the 2nd house we lived in on that base, but yet has been demolished according to other map sites)

  2. Hello Orion, thanks for your comment. That view is looking south or southwest-ish from the old intersection with Rt.16. It’s an overpass now, and the guardhouse is gone. But it used to be right when you turned into the base from Rt. 16. B.

  3. I was checking the history of Pease AFB as I was stationed there 1969-1973 in a tenant unit. The unit was 54 Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron(MAC). The unit flew the Hc-130N/P until deactivated in the mid 70’s with the end of Vietnam.

  4. Hey Craig , We lived at 50 Hickory lane on the corner, but couldnt tell you what the other streets were named, we moved in 72. I have some photos of some planes at the open house . I wish there was a web site where we could get up with the people we spent 2 or 3 years of our life with.

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