The Bay Area hangars where movies met military history

Nestled in the small Bay Area town of Novato, Ca. sit a string of nine airplane hangars known as Hamilton Field.

Now surrounded by suburban neighborhoods, the former Air Force Base has served as a location for some beloved movie scenes.

Indiana Jones had an adventure there, and so did the brave astronauts of the 1983 film The Right Stuff.

Movie magic doesn’t always happen in a sound stage. Sometimes it happens in a huge, empty hangar where real military history still lingers.

Hamilton Field was dedicated as a bomber installation in 1935. During World War II, it served as an initial training base for new fighter groups, and a major aerial port for troops heading to the Pacific and CBI (China-Burma-India) theaters of the war.

Hamilton Field was decommissioned and vacated in the mid 1970s, at which time it became a useful backdrop for Hollywood productions.

You’ll recognize Hangar 9 from the scene at the beginning of the 1984 film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where Indie (Harrison Ford), Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) and Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) try to get away on board Lao Che’s plane at

the Shanghai Airport.

You’ll even find Dan Aykroyd in the scene, as Art Weber, the British Army officer who arranges for the escape plane.

You’ll also see one of Hamilton's hangars in 1983’s The Right Stuff. Much of the interior location shooting for the film took place at Hamilton Field, including the scene where Chuck Yeager (the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound!) asks Jack Ridley for help after he injures his ribs before a flight.

Filmmakers also created an exact life-sized mockup of the space capsule inside the hangar. They set it up on gimbals to give the impression that it was tipping. Then they projected an image of clouds on the screen above John Glenn (played by Ed Harris).

The show Mythbusters filmed episodes at Hamilton Field, and it was used in the television show Emergency! in 1978.

And going back many decades, the unassuming Northern California air base attracted stars of both film and politics.

In 1944, comedy team Bud Abbott and Lou Costello visited the evacuee wards at the Hamilton Debarkation Hospital to entertain and thank the troops - and to promote the sale of war bonds.

Other historic figures who've spent time at the base include President Harry Truman in 1945, First Lady Lady Bird Johnson in 1966, President Richard Nixon in1969 and President Gerald Ford in 1975.

Across America, places like Hamilton Field have played a role in the movies we all love. There may even be some hidden Hollywood gems in your community, as filmmakers strive to bring authenticity and the gravitas of history to the screen.