‘Fortress on the Plains'

HOBBS, N.M. While the Permian Basin gets to see it's air show for one weekend a year, Hobbs is getting a permanent taste of aviation history.

The city is home to the new 19-foot-tall, 82-foot-long sculpture "Fortress on the Plains." The "silhouette" resembles a life-sized World War II-era B-17 bomber with crewmembers and support personnel.

"I've always been a lover of World War II aviation and the B-17 in particular," said Brian Norwood of Jal, N.M., the artist of the sculpture. "When I read that the air base in Hobbs had been a B-17 training base, that caught my eye."

Norwood originally proposed the idea for the sculpture in 2001, but said it took the recent economic upswing before the city of Hobbs agreed to fund it. It took him several weeks of cutting quarter-inch sheets of steel and assembling the pieces at the Hobbs Industrial Air Park, near where B-17 pilots once trained.

The project has both similarities and differences to "The Trail Ahead," a sculpture Norwood built 45 miles down Highway 18 in Jal. The 20-foot-tall, 400-foot-long sculpture, which Norwood worked on between 1999 and 2000, features cowboys leading a herd of cattle.

"It's quite a bit smaller (than "The Trail Ahead"), but it was more difficult because of some of the red tape," Norwood said. "We had to work through the city and some of the commissions and boards to approve it."

Norwood said "Fortress on the Plains" had to be approved by a structural engineer, which meant the sculpture needed to be able to withstand 100 mph winds. So while "The Trail Ahead" was held up by 6-inch pipe, the new sculpture had to be supported by 6-inch square steel tubing.

"It'll take a heck of a storm to knock it down," Norwood said.

The last pieces of the sculpture went up Aug. 12, but an official dedication date has yet to be set.

Kevin Robinson, Hobbs project manager of planning, said he hopes the sculpture will add to the airpark, which is being developed for industrial lots. It also houses the "Soaring Society of America," an international sailplane, hang-gliding and paragliding organization that uses the runways of the old air base.

"It's a visual reminder of the sacrifices of the generation before," Robinson said. "The generations who were not aware of the air base out there - it's going to give them something to hopefully pique their interest."

Norwood said his only regret is that "Fortress on the Plains" wasn't completed sooner, so more pilots who trained at Hobbs Army Air Field could have lived to see it.

But he said the World War II veterans who've seen it have been appreciative.

"I certainly wish it could have been done a number of years earlier," he said. "But all the factors had to come together at the right time."