This is the release of  version R-18 of the data base.

A few more pictures have been added.  Pratt and Rodeo CAA sites in New Mexico have been determined to be the same location.

This release adds some more pictures for a few of the intermediates in the data base.  I wish too again thank Mr. Chris Kennedy for his help, especially in getting some intermediates fully located.  His efforts has taken a lot of effort to look up old USGS topographic maps to find old intermediates.  Mr. Kennedy's help is greatly appreciated through out the effort to develop this data base and the understanding of the intermediate's history.

One intermediate in Pennsylvania (Penn State CAA 26) that has listed in the data base but was not in the count has been added to the count.  It is still unclear whether or not Penn State CAA 26 really was a true CAA intermediate.  It appears only on 1935 documentation as a CAA intermediate.  There after, it was a Pennsylvania State Intermediate. 

More sources are now available on the internet where old aerial photographs are available.  The following universities' libraries have begun to add aerial coverage:  Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Penn State, Illinois, Iowa, Wayne University and Cornell University.  None are complete and often the coverage offered is spotty.  A few old intermediate's remains can still be found in aerial coverage from the USGS and on Google Earth.  (On the home page, you can click on the link button and you fill find links to those libraries.)

Note: coordinates in the data base that are in red and italics are estimates based on some data.  When coordinates are not yet determined, "- - - -" dashes are used.  Where data is not available, then the dashes are used.

The "Operational Period", used in this data base, covers only that period of time that a field had true intermediate status.  This data base does not normally indicate if an intermediate airfield was operated earlier (as civil/commercial) or if the field continued to operate after the intermediate status ended.

The intermediate airfield at Battle Mountain (CAA site #35) Nevada had been listed as having two locations.  However, one of the results of this major review, it has been decided that the "second location" was not a true intermediate.  The older intermediate, located close to the town, was replaced when a new airfield was constructed about 4 miles SE.  Some data indicated that this new airfield was an intermediate.  Yet other data conflicted with that data so this "second" location has been deleted.  There is no doubt that the beacon had been relocated to the new airport and that may have confused some folks that entered it as an intermediate in there directories.  All charts indicated this second airfield as being civil.

It should be noted that some intermediates were actually privately owned or owned by a local community (city and/or county) and leased to and operated by the CAA.  Some land was purchased by the CAA and setup an intermediate airfield on that land.

Some of the data found has not been confirm if they were or were not true CAA intermediate fields.  These include:

It is likely that a number of the fields in the above table listed as being in the 1926 U.S. Post Office intermediates were not transferred to the Department of Commerce's CAA or were removed from the intermediate airfield category as the CAA re-aligned airways.  Data covering the 1927 time frame are sketchy making a true trace difficult.

I use some abbreviations / acronyms now explained.  A new button has been added in the box at the top of this page.

Mr. C. Kennedy has developed a feature that can be used with Google Earth that shows the location (or estimated) for each CAA/FAA intermediate field in the data base.  USE MUST HAVE GOOGLE EARTH INSTALLED ON YOUR COMPUTER IN ORDER TO USE THIS FEATURE.  Google Earth can be obtained free at this website (follow instructions): http://earth.google.com/

It is highly advisable that you have either broadband or DSL high speed interface to the internet to use this feature or elsewhere this application may run slow.

There are several symbols used for each field.  They are:

1.  Airplane symbol - has two meanings.  If the field does not have "(est)", then the location is confirmed, especially where there is an airfield that is a direct descendent of the intermediate field.  If the field name is followed by "(est)" location is best understanding where it likely was but not confirmed with lat/long data.  Often the only reference might be "x" miles from a town on a certain heading (example 1.5 miles north of town).

2.  Star symbol - these locations are based on the CAA/FAA beacon location data base information (NGS database) as it is highly likely the beacon was on or near the airfield.

Where know airfield layouts exist, polygons are drawn on the location to show the shape of the airfield. 

Click on this button.  A window will open for download of a temporary file.  Click on "OPEN".  A new window will appear where the temporary file is located labeled "DOC".  Click of "DOC" and Google Earth should start and the placemarks for the CAA/FAA intermediate airfields should come up automatically.  You can use your zoom feature in Google Earth to zoom in on any of the airfields.

Download of placemarks is temporarily unavailable.

An additional feature has been added with provides an overlay of the Sectional Aeronautical Charts used from about the mid 1930s to 1970.  Click on this button and a window will and a download temporary file window will appear and click on "OPEN".  The temporary file window will appear and then click on "DOC" in this window and the overlay will open in Google Earth.

To eliminate these from your Google Earth, highlight the overlay in the "PLACES" (left side column) and select delete in edit (or use delete key on your keyboard).  Confirm you want to delete the temporary file and Google Earth will delete it.

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The 7/30/05 update incorporated additional work to try and depict the time that an intermediate airfield was operational.  It also includes data from an old CAA Bulletin No. 5 dated 4/15/1929.  The bulletin does not have a lot of information, but does identify a number of early intermediate airfields that apparently closed by 1930.  I have used "mid 1920s" for the start date where this Bulletin lists intermediates.

The first chart shows the distribution of intermediate fields based on the 1929 Bulletin.

This next chart is the current summary of the total number of CAA/FAA Intermediate airfields, by state, that are known to have existed.  This does not mean that the number in a state were all operational at the same time.  Just a total number that I have found in a state.

(Last update to this chart is 12/04/2006)

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I had become intrigued with this question – how many CAA/FAA airfields were there in the 48 contiguous states?

I have added an update to the CAA / FAA Intermediate data abase.  An additional column has been added that defines the operational period the field was an Intermediate field.  Some fields may have existed before and after this time period.  The CAA did take over some existing fields and made them CAA Intermediate fields.  Conversely, the CAA (later the FAA) did turn over Intermediates to local organizations.  I am only describing the time frame it was a CAA (or FAA) Intermediate field.  This is an area under development, so for most states, the best estimate on a start date based on earliest data is in the column.  I will be working on this and updates will be made in the future.

The data has been taken from airport/airfield directories, aeronautical charts and other sources.  BY no means do I consider this complete.  To find these fields, I have visually scanned old documents, directories, and charts - mainly before 1947 time frame when the USGS changed the symbol used to define an Intermediate airfield making it much more difficult to visually see them.  I have currently identified over 655 CAA / FAA Intermediate airfields.  (Previously, the CAA Intermediates were broken out separately for AZ, NM, OK and TX under those separate data bases.  Those data base tables have been eliminated and all combined into this data base.  You can still find them in those state data bases, just not a separate table for them.)  In the case of Pennsylvania only, there were some Intermediate airfields operated by the State of Pennsylvania.  Most of them had been CAA Intermediates prior, but a few appear to have been original ones setup by Pennsylvania.  They have been included in this data.

According to the CAA/FAA history 1926-1996, the CAA came into existence in 1926.  Prior to that time, the U.S. Post Office Department ran air mail services and had built airfields (referred to as intermediate landing fields), beacons, etc.  On July 1, 1927, the transcontinental airway system was transferred to the Department of Commerce (home of the CAA) from the Post Office Department.  This included 92 intermediate landing fields, 101 electric beacons and 417 acetylene beacons.  The transfer also included 17 radio stations including 45 radio operators, 14 maintenance mechanics and 84 caretakers.

All but five (5) intermediate fields were closed or transferred over to local organizations by 1965.  The last to be transferred/closed was Hanksville UT in 1974.  The establishment of intermediate fields started in the early 1920s to support the New York to San Francisco airways route.  The CAA/FAA history is available on the Internet at the FAA website.  It is a .pdf file you can down load.  It is large, 303 pages in length and about 2.0MB. 

Some additional information about this database:  The data gathered is what I call a “moments in time” information – not a history of what might have happened to a field over the years.  Many of these fields simply went away as aircraft and flight capabilities no longer needed them.  Others were taken over by local city, county or private organizations and continued to maintain and operate them – no longer referred to as a CAA Intermediate field.  Some of these fields were taken over during WW2 by the military for usage as air and naval air fields.

There are comments (in the remarks column) that say “L” shaped layout or “T” shaped layout.  The CAA used several layout patterns as guides for the intermediate airfield construction and layout.

The “T” shaped would have a  general layout of the letter arrangement.  This arrangement generally supported two runways – however, depending upon the width, the entire field could be used.  “L” shaped airfield layout came in to patterns.  The first, a classic “L” shaped and the a modified layout.  The “L” normally supported two runways.  The modified “L” supported three runways.  Like the “T” field patter, the dimensions of the field often would allow for the entire field to be used.  These patterns could have any orientation.

 I have tried to list the number of runways for a field.  If there is no number, that is because it was a general field and it could be used “all ways”.

 As time passed, these patterns and lengths could have changed by a good bit.  A lot of the data came from early 1930s aeronautical charts, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Air Commerce, Descriptions of Airports and Landing Fields in the United States, Airway Bulletin No. 2, Army and Navy directory, other airport directories, USGS topographic maps and commercial maps.

 After 1945 (end of WW2) few new intermediate airfields were added.  Pursuit for looking at aeronautical charts after about 1947 is much more difficult to locate CAA airfields that would still be active.  Some of the money appropriated in the 1939-1941 time frame was transferred to the War Department and the fields were constructed, mainly by the Corp. of Engineers (Army) and some by the Navy and used for military operations till after WW2.

After entering data from the 1931 U.S. Department of Commerce Airway Bulletin No. 2 "Descriptions of Airports and Landing Fields in the United States" Sept. 1, 1931, I noticed some interesting things.  Quite a few of the early CAA fields that were established from 1929 were closed by 1934.  Using the 1931 publication, the 1934, 1936 and 1938 editions, you can detect several building periods of CAA intermediate airfields.  These correspond to major funding cycles.  The first generation under CAA were built from the 1927-1929 appropriations to establish and setup these fields to support aviation development in the United States followed by appropriations in the 1934-35 and another major appropriation in the late 1930s.

The chart above gives an general idea of the main periods of building the CAA intermediate airfields.  Conversely, the closure pattern.  The closure pattern can not be taken absolute as CAA intermediate airfields were transitioned to local organizations at various times.  What the chart is trying to depict is the general trends based on appropriations.  The chart provides a generalization of these events, exceptions existed too.

In the data base/table you can look at, the column "Operational Period", the start date is vague at best for those prior to 1930.  I have used "1929-30" but it could have been as early as the early 1920s under the U.S. Post Office period of "intermediate" airfields.  I lack data at this time to try and establish earlier start date.

As pointed out by a friend, many of these early airfields were just that - a field.  These could be changed depending upon local conditions and situations.  The lack of good information today makes the job of finding and tracking these early airfields very difficult at best.  Much of the data from the 1920s to mid 1930s is error prone.

Major differences can be found in elevation, location descriptions, etc.   An example is the often used description as an airfield as being 2.5 miles east of town.  What are the reference points used?  From center of town, or city limits?  To the edge of the airfield or to some point on the airfield?  Is it true east or +/- something around east?  Even when it is stated in latitude and longitude, these can be off too.  For the most part, the early coordinates for latitude and longitude were to degrees and minutes only.  No seconds.  Where were the readings taken from for an airfield?  To give an example, if the field were 1 mile (5,280 feet) from one point to another, this can represent a 1.5 minute difference (for true North / South or East / West orientation).  If you use topographic maps and aerial pictures, sometimes you can only decide that no airfield could be where the description places it.  Too rough of terrain or it was a built up area even at the time in question.

Even during the early 1930s, I have scene discrepancies in the description of airfields that could lead you to assume that there were several airfields with the same name.  Different airfields at locations - or errors?  That is a hard question to answer.  From today's perspective, it is difficult to find clear evidence of remains of these early airfields.  Historical narratives are the best to help resolve these but are very difficult to find any.  Even when you find some, they can be in error too!  An example is the website run by the El Paso International airport.  Reading the history page, you would assume it started in 1928.  Actually, the El Paso Municipal airport did start in 1928 but at a different location than the current El Paso International airport operates from.  Close, but different.  Actually, the El Paso Municipal airport location operated till 1937 when it closed down.  Where the current El Paso International airport is located is where American Airlines started an airfield in the 1932/3 time frame.  This later was taken over in 1937 and became the "new" El Paso Municipal airport.  Just to be complete, from about 1944 to 1946 it was also known as "Anderson Airport" and after 1946, it took on its present name of El Paso International Airport.  Even though El Paso is not an Intermediate field, I have used it as an example of you can run into in tracking an airfield/airport.  Just takes a lot of detective work to work out these situations.