A former naval runway and steel hangars beside a retired aircraft carrier moored at the pier.
What Alameda Point looks like
Alameda Point is the flat western tip of the island, a paved runway and aircraft parking apron with steel framed hangars strung along its eastern edge. The hangars carry rows of small multi pane windows under a cream painted frame, rust bleeding down from a few of them. Beyond them the apron runs on past faded taxiway markings toward the water.
The retired aircraft carrier is moored bow first at the southernmost pier, its grey hull rising well above the waterline and its flight deck open for public tours. One level down, the hangar deck runs the length of the ship, hung with international signal flags and lined with aircraft and vehicles kept on static display.
Monarch Street, along the old flight line, now runs past hangars converted into tasting rooms. Their steel doors and window walls are still in place behind newer signage. The old seaplane lagoon at the island's north edge is flanked today by a ferry terminal and a paved promenade, with San Francisco's skyline visible across the water at dusk.
Shot in Alameda Point
The USS Hornet has stood in for other Navy ships more than once since it became a museum, including a scene from Rescue Dawn on the hangar deck and an episode of the CBS series JAG. The Discovery Channel's MythBusters used the runway on the other side of the site for its stunts across more than a decade. NBC's Trauma staged a mock airliner crash on the same pavement in 2009, caught that year on satellite imagery of the runway.
Rescue Dawn, 2006
The hangar deck
Played a pilots' debriefing room, aboard an aircraft carrier at sea, the mid 1960s
Rescue Dawn used the ship for a scene set in a pilots' debriefing room, where Christian Bale's character sits through a mission briefing early in the film. The compartment shown here is the hangar deck itself, one level down from the flight deck and laid out today for public tours, with signal flags strung overhead and aircraft on static display along both sides.
What Alameda Point can double for
USS Midway Museum in San Diego, California
The USS Midway Museum on San Diego's Navy Pier is the more famous version of the same idea, a retired aircraft carrier open for public tours at a real dock. Both ships carry a below decks hangar bay and a flight deck with a city or bay skyline behind the island. Midway sits against downtown San Diego's towers and cruise terminals, while the Hornet's backdrop is Alameda's flatter waterfront and the Oakland hills, so a wide shot needs to pick its background carefully to avoid giving away which coast it is. Try searching retired aircraft carrier museum now.
Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, California
The apron and paved taxiways read like a smaller version of Southern California Logistics Airport, the decommissioned Air Force base at Victorville that productions such as Tenet and the Fast and Furious films have used for open runway stunts and hangar interiors. Alameda's apron is a fraction of the size and sits on the bay rather than in the high desert, so a wide establishing shot needs to stay close to the pavement to hold the illusion. Keep San Francisco and Oakland's skylines out of frame, since Victorville's own backdrop is flat desert scrub. Try searching decommissioned Air Force base now.
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