Cudjoe Key Air Force Station (earlier Cudjoe Key Missile Tracking Annex, Eglin AFB Site "No D 8") is a Formerly Used Defense Site of 68.5 acres (27.7 ha) in Monroe County, Florida, 7 mi (11 km) Northeast of Perky, Florida.
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Background
In February 1959, the county commissioned approved a water line to the "missile tracking site on Cudjoe Key" being built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Activated on 16 Jun 1959 by the Army, the site was "to track missiles traveling over the Eglin Gulf Test Range. The Air Force assumed operations in 1960" (the initial site code J-08 was changed to Z-399 in 1963.)
On 30 June 1967, the station transferred from the jurisdiction of Eglin AFB to Goodfellow AFB after beginning a May 1967 classified mission for the USAF Security Service. On 30 September 1970 the military installation transferred to Tyndall Air Force Base, and in 1973 the first aerostat of the Tethered Aerostat Radar System was deployed at the site.
Aerospace Defense Command / Tactical Air Command / Air Combat Command
By 1977 the site had transferred under "the 671st Radar Squadron [at] Homestead" Air Force Base, and the site manager was John Workman in a unit that worked for the Patrick AFB Range Measurements Laboratory. In 1981 the aerostat broke free while being brought down prior to a storm, and it was later shot down by an F-4 Phantom, and the aerostat broke free again in 1989 and 1991. in 2007 a private Cessna crashed into the tethers, killing 3 passengers. In 2013, petition signatures were being gathered to keep the "Fat Albert" Aerostat at the station.
By 2005, the annex had been redesignated as both Cudjoe Key Air Force Station and Detachment 3, Southeast Air Defense Sector, with the latter unit embedded at the site.