On September 24, 1929, Lt. James Doolittle climbed into a Consolidated NY-2 Husky with a hood pulled tight over his cockpit. He took off, flew about 20 miles over a set course and landed 15 minutes later without seeing the ground. "So far as I know," he later recalled, "this was the first time an airplane had taken off, flown over a set course, and landed by instruments alone."
The runway under him was at Mitchel Field on Long Island. Part of what told him where that runway was had come from Rockaway Valley, from the industrial buildings next to the field we now call RVA Fields.
That difference is the best reason to walk over to the new Doolittle's Landing playground this month. The name points to a famous flight. The ground around the playground holds a quieter history, and it's more particular to Boonton Township than the famous flight.
A Playground Built by Volunteers, Rebuilt by the Township
Doolittle's Landing started as a neighborhood project. In 2001 a group of community volunteers formed a committee to build a new playground at RVA Fields that would highlight the township's roots and the site's ties to aviation. They held fundraisers, sold pavers and built it in spring 2002. The township's newsletter says thousands of children used it over the next two decades.
This year the Township Committee set out to replace it. Designers previewed concepts with residents at the RVA Pavilion on June 3, and the township said it would revise the design based on community feedback. In August the committee adopted Bond Ordinance 966, which appropriated $300,000 for playground improvements and authorized up to $150,000 of that in township bonds or notes. This fall the township reported that crews had removed the old equipment, started refurbishing the gazebo and begun installing the new playground.
The township scheduled the ribbon cutting for Monday, November 9, from 4:45 to 5:30 p.m. at RVA Fields, 355 Powerville Road.
The Marker Next to the Slide Chooses Its Words Carefully
Beside the playground stands a historic marker dedicated on September 24, 1989, the 60th anniversary of the flight, by "The Citizens of Boonton Township and The Yankee Air Force." Its key sentences, as transcribed by the Historical Marker Database, read:
In 1929 at this site of the Aircraft Radio Corporation Airdrome in Boonton Township, Lieutenant James H. Doolittle of the Army Air Corps conducted extensive acceptance tests of the Aircraft Radio Corporation Type B Beacon Receiver and the Type C Code Transmitter. With the aid of these excellent radios, this brilliant engineer was able to take off, fly and land his airplane for the first time in aviation history by reference to instruments alone.
The marker says the testing happened here. It credits the radios for the flight without saying where the flight took place.
Local retellings have often gone a step further. A Mountain Lakes Boonton magazine interview describes the first instrument-driven takeoff and landing as made "at the Rockaway Valley Aerodrome," and the township's own weekly trivia feature calls the plane in its 1929 Doolittle photo the one "used for the first 'blind take-off and landing.'"
The account written that same day is clear about the location. UPI's September 24, 1929 report says Doolittle "today took off from Mitchel Field, L.I." The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Air Force Historical Foundation and the IEEE milestone record all put the flight at the Guggenheim Full Flight Laboratory at Mitchel Field. As NJ Skylands put it, Doolittle flew the official first blind flight in Garden City, but "the legwork happened at the Aerodrome, where Doolittle was said to be a regular."
What Came Out of Rockaway Valley
The legwork has a paper trail. A 1950 history of Boonton industry says the Aircraft Division of Radio Frequency Laboratories, or RFL, began developing aircraft radio in the fall of 1927. By late 1928 that division had become a separate company, Aircraft Radio Corporation, or ARC. Lewis M. Hull, RFL's director of research from 1922, went on to become ARC's president, according to the same 1950 history.
The NY-2's cockpit combined work from several organizations. The joint IEEE-AIAA milestone proposal lists who supplied what:
| Equipment on the NY-2 | Who built it |
|---|---|
| Altimeter synchronized by radio to ground pressure | Kollsman Instrument Company |
| Artificial horizon | Sperry Gyroscope Company |
| Radio range and marker beacon on the ground | Bureau of Standards |
| Receiver with vibrating-reed course display | Radio Frequency Laboratories, Boonton |
| One-tube code transmitter | Radio Frequency Laboratories, Boonton |
| Voice transmitter | Western Electric and Bell Telephone Laboratories |
The vibrating-reed display is what kept Doolittle lined up with the radio range as he flew blind. The same proposal says he flew the NY-2 to Boonton several times to have its radio equipment installed.
He was also at the field before any of that. NJ Advance Media reported that he attended an aviation and radio industry conference at Rockaway Valley Airport in January 1929, when the site was known as Aircraft Radio Corporation Field. The Federal Aviation Administration's history timeline credits ARC's Boonton technicians with designing aircraft radios used by the Army and Navy.
The township's 1929 photograph of Doolittle at the Rockaway Valley Airdrome shows a hangar it identifies as the building known today as Building #3. That hangar is still on the property.
A Lap Around the Old Lab
The walking loop at RVA Fields follows what was once the airfield's edge. The township's July 2024 Open Space and Recreation Plan measures it at 1.77 miles and lists exercise equipment and Doolittle's Landing along the way. NJ Skylands describes a flat gravel path with self-guided signs and photos explaining radio beacon technology, a vintage hangar and the outline of a 3,200-foot runway. The low industrial buildings next to the runway made up the research and manufacturing complex where the work happened.
What to look for on a lap:
- The Doolittle marker, next to the playground, with the 1989 inscription quoted above.
- The vintage hangar that NJ Skylands describes along the path, which the township's caption identifies as Building #3.
- The interpretive signs, including a vintage photo of a test plane ready for takeoff with its cockpit hooded.
- The runway outline itself. The loop follows the old airfield's perimeter, so a full lap traces the edge of the field where Doolittle brought the NY-2 to have its radios installed.
The open space plan lists two parking areas. One is off Rockaway Valley Road behind the fire department, and the other is on Powerville Road beside Hubbell Power Systems. The township's field map asks visitors not to park in the firehouse lot itself. Under the park rules in the township newsletter, dogs must be on a leash no longer than six feet, stay on the gravel path or in the parking lot, keep off the fields, and be picked up after.
Two Restorations on One Road This Year
Powerville Road now has two refreshed landmarks with roots in the township's past. A short drive from RVA Fields, the Valley Farm Stand at the Oscar Kincaid Home of History reopened on July 31 after rehabilitation, with Jeff and Colleen Dowling running it, Morris County announced. Oscar Kincaid built his property into a dairy, vegetable and poultry farm with an ice cream stand. He served two terms as mayor and pushed for farmland preservation across Morris County. His homestead is now the headquarters of the Boonton Township Historical Society. The Historical Society says the Home of History opens during scheduled events or by appointment.
The farm stand recalls the township's farming era. The new playground recalls a few years in the late 1920s when engineers in Rockaway Valley were building radios that would let planes fly through fog and darkness. Both sit within a few minutes of each other on the same road.
At The Weiss Group, we keep track of what's changing in the towns we serve, from a playground rebuild to a reopened farm stand. If you're thinking about a move within Boonton Township or nearby, and want someone who knows these places well, we'd be glad to talk it through. Schedule a Free Consultation whenever the timing feels right.
