INTRODUCTION:

I became interested in airfields when I was young which lead to service in the USAF and a long career in the aerospace industry.  I was a private pilot for a short time - a long time ago (had to end that due to health problems).  I am retired now and am trying to gather this information for my own knowledge and I am now sharing this information with anyone who has like interests.  Initially contributed to other websites dealing with airfields.  A nagging question I had was simple - how many airfields existed - active and inactive (closed).  Started with Texas first and later on expanded to other states.  I also got interested in the "intermediate" airfields that grew out of the early 1920s US Post Airmail system.  Finally, I got interested in how many airfields, in the continental U.S. (now including Hawaii), were used by the Military (Army, AAF, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard) during WW2.

The states data bases are abridged versions.  The complete data bases are too large to put on the web.  The data presented here on the web provides the earliest "start" date and the "closed" date or still active.  Also covered are name changes or other status changes that could be considered interesting.

Gathering data has been a slow process of collecting all sorts of maps/charts, directories, books, historical information and other research.  Contributions have been happily received by like minded individuals.

Early airfields and airports from about 1920 to the mid 1930s often are hard to get specific data on.  One of the reasons is that early airfields were just that - a field.  An airport owner would move "the airfield" from field to another field using the same name.  Often the description of the "new" location would appear the same as the "old" location.  Why did they move?  Good question.  I have no specific answer to that question.  The reason for discussing this is the possibility of errors can exist in exact location of an airfield from the 1920s and early 1930s.  There is evidence that some airfields were moved several times by the owner - all using the same airport name. 

This information is not meant to be complete but a gathering of data.  These data bases can be used as a tool to find out about airfields/airports in these states and the US.  I am sure there are errors or missing data.  This is a work-in-progress effort and I continue to add and modify/correct information.  By no means should this data be used for any real navigation!   Included in the remarks column is the mileage that the airfield is from the associated town.  These mileages are from the "central business district" to the airfield.  The direction is also specified (e.g. N, E, W, S, NE, SW, NW, etc.).  Occasionally I have run into funny errors where the airfield is listed as being NW of the town.  An error where someone forgot and said where the town was in respect to the airfield!

I do not normally log helicopter fields.  Only a few are in the data bases which had, in my opinion, unique reasons to be included.  I have also limited ultra light airfields to those, generally speaking, to 1000 foot or greater in runway length.

I have used Microsoft’s^TM Excel^TM spreadsheet to build these data bases.  Some may say this is foolish (should have used a data base system), but it was easy for me.  The data base is viewable with you regular web browser as the data is stored in HTML.

1995 USGS/NAPP

1995 USGS/NAPP

The columns used in each data base are defined here:    

So just how do you find airfields?     

You may find references through out the various data bases to "GE".  This stands for Google Earth.

Note about pictures now available in various data bases.  Most pictures are from one of two sources.  USGS/NAPP from Terraserver and from Google Earth.  For Google Earth, there mark and copyrights are on those pictures.  Most of the USGS/NAPP photographs show there mark in the lower right corner.  A few have been cropped and the mark has been lost. Some older photographs have come from the National Archives (abbreviated on photos as NA) or people who have given them to me for use.  Some other sources are from the University of Alabama (abbreviated on photos as UoAL), the University of Florida (abbreviated on photos as UoFL) and the University of Georgia (UoGA).  These libraries have online aerial photographs.  Newer sources that have online aerial pictures are the University of Iowa (UoIA) and Penn State (PS).  Wayne University is source for Detroit MI area photographs (mainly 1949) (WU).  Most of the black and white aerial photographs have a common source - the U.S. Government.  The library have been repositories of these photographs and are digitizing these and making some available on the Internet.  Most of the photographs that the universities are posting on the web now are from U.S. Department of Agriculture.  Additional sites are becoming available.  In the lower right corner of pictures, source is abbreviated there.  IL for Illinois, MN for Minnesota and other sources such as the USAF and US Navy are noted.

I have endeavored to ensure pictures are in the public domain or provided with no restrictions to usage.  Some come from my personal photographic collection.  Scans of USGS/NOAA charts are in the public domain (not copyrighted by the U.S. Government).  A few are from other sources.  Some of the World War II maps of various bases have been provided to me by other individuals interested in preserving and sharing the information.

A new photograph credit source will be upcoming in a future release.

Thank you for visiting my website.

It will be updated from time to time.