Area 51 between Area 51 and Lockheed's Burbank, California offices. To preserve secrecy, personnel flew to Nevada on Monday mornings and returned to California on Friday evenings. Project OXCART established in August 1959 for "antiradar studies, aerodynamic structural tests, and engineering designs [and] all later work on the" Lockheed A-12 included testing at Groom Lake, which before improvements for OXCART had inadequate facilities: buildings for only 150 people, a asphalt runway, and limited fuel, hangar, and shop space. Selected for its seclusion and climate, Groom Lake had received a new official name "Area 51" when A-12 test facility construction began in September
Area 51 plunging the aircraft into the sagebrush. Area 51 pilots called it "The Hook". For crosswind landings two unpaved airstrips (runways 9/27 and 03/21) were marked on the dry lakebed. By August 1961, construction of the essential facilities was completed (3 surplus Navy hangars were erected on the base's north side—hangars 4, 5, and 6.) A fourth, Hangar 7, was new construction. The original U-2 hangars were converted to maintenance and machine shops. Facilities in the main cantonment area included workshops and buildings for storage and administration, a commissary, control tower, fire station, and housing. The Navy also contributed more than