Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields | Hacker News Reader

Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

airfields-freeman.com

154 pointswizardforhire59 comments

My grandfather ran one of these airports:

https://airfields-freeman.com/CA/Airfields_CA_SanBernardino_...

The stories he would tell of that place. Drug runners landing in the night and him chasing them off with a shotgun. People constantly coming around to try and steal things. The people that would fly in to say hello. He had a real community out there. There were some sad circumstances around the end of his life that meant he couldn't run it the way it should have been run and it fell into decay. My family sold it after his passing as the cost and complexity to run such an airport so far from everything was too much (on top of none of us being pilots). It was a sad event. These days I think it's a solar farm.

It's too bad, because once these small GA airports go away, they are never coming back. Too expensive to rehab, and nobody is building new ones anymore. So ideally they should be preserved, but nobody wants to do it.

The tiny GA airfield in my home town went up for sale some time back, and the price they were asking was less than what a medium-sized Bay Area home cost. I was so tempted to find a way to make it work (equity partner?) and retire my tech job to become an airport manager. But alas, I chickened out, and some doofus bought it and is probably going to destroy it to build something stupid there. Unlikely it will remain an airport, and unlikely it will ever be sold again as a feasible rehab project.

Small GA airports out in the middle of nowhere can come into being, but it's rare, and the whole GA field is aging out and disappearing (both the pilots, planes, and people).

A big part of that is the regulatory environment. For example - I have the interest and means to get my PPL. I'd love to do so, but the FAA considers ADHD to be a disqualifying medical condition.

https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/airmen_certificati... implies there may be a path (depending on what "special issuance" means).

Yea, going the Special Issuance route is tough and lengthy, and you still cannot be currently relying on medication to manage the condition. The FAA's "mental health" requirements for flying are rooted in good intentions, but too coarse. You don't want someone suffering from schizophrenia, severe depression or bipolar mania to be flying airplanes, but on the other hand, someone who was once had mild anxiety or ADHD 30 years ago should not be disqualified. The FAA treats these cases similarly.

Sport pilot or "perpetual student" may be other options - https://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/airmen_certificati...

(Perpetual student - you can be in control of a plane but not PIC without a medical or anything, so you can literally pay an instructor to be PIC whilst you do the flybits.)

The cost is a much bigger factor for most

It's both expensive and not that expensive; roughly the cost "all-in" of getting a good motorcycle.

If I were to do it again I'd save up and take time off and do all the training in a month or two. Half the cash I burned was relearning the shit I forgot since the last lesson.

Ultralight and sport (no medical clearance) can still land on airfields, no?

No, they can't, because the people in somewhere won't let you build an airport in the middle of nowhere without abiding by the rules they wrote for somewhere.

I wonder what the future will be like given that "flying cars" are now more or less a reality.

they exist. but fuel, inflation ...

The future looks much like it does now.

Yeah, that's the problem: once they close down and the land gets sold, it will typically get developed and once that happens the land isn't coming back unless you have a Detroit situation. It's not like suburbs have lots of empty space for an approach and a strip. Even if there were, NIMBYs would prevent one from happening.

I landed at that airport, it must have been soon after your grandfather passed - it wasn't NOTAM'd as closed, but the phone number had a recording that the owner had passed and it was closed - I relocated to the larger 29 Palms airport, farther from my destination. My condolences on your loss.

I'm glad this site is still up as I haven't looked at it in many years. I used to be based out of W32, Hyde Field and got out during the sale/bankruptcy a few years ago. The recent photos of the place there do a good job capturing the scene of decay. It had essentially no online presence, but there was an active and very good aircraft maintenance shop there until the end. https://airfields-freeman.com/MD/Airfields_MD_PG_S.htm

Thanks for sharing! What was your role at Hyde Field?

I rented a hangar there

It’s a poignant phenomenon that so many airfields used to exist. People now complain endlessly to get long-established fields shut down *, but red tape keeps any new ones from opening.

* It is important to note that usually, something like 98% of noise complaints come from 1-2 individuals, even in areas with thousands of residents.

I mean I kind of get that. If I bought land/house away from stuff, and suddenly they want to place an airfield right next to me, I'd fight it as well. Moving to where an airfield already is and then try to close it is mischievous behaviour though, and obviously not very kind.

> 98% of noise complaints come from 1-2 individuals, even in areas with thousands of residents.

I think you can replace "noise" with "X" and it still applies to almost everything. People generally just adapt and is fine with pretty much anything not directly impacting your life, in many places.

Most/all airfields predate the purchase of a home. The noise complaints come from people who came long after the airfield was established.

This is true, but the problem has become more concentrated with the advent of RNAV. Depending on wind direction and which runway Logan was operating, I had flights departing directly over my place in both JP and later Somerville every 60-90 seconds. The precision with which they do this is incredible, and also kind of annoying.

Spreading out the traffic would do wonders. Having witnessed this firsthand, it's not super surprising that complaints are concentrated when the noise is too.

I had in mind airfields & strips more than commercial aviation hubs, but regardless: more options would somewhat relieve extremely busy SIDs and STARs. Alas, in densely populated areas that ship has probably already sailed.

Yeah, I kind of get it too. But at some point, this country was able to get it done, and that has been largely lost. I'd also say that on average, small aircraft are a lot quieter than they were when these fields were being built.

> I think you can replace "noise" with "X"

I suspect that complaints have become a sort of catharsis for people who otherwise don't feel a great deal of control over their circumstances. Also sort of understandable, but ultimately ineffective for increased quality of life. Poignant.

> It is important to note that usually, something like 98% of noise complaints come from 1-2 individuals, even in areas with thousands of residents.

Research paper for anyone interested: https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/airport-nois...

And when there's any talk about airport capacity expansion, newspapers and anti-development organizations trot out statistics about thousands of complaints per year from residents, and then the conversation shifts from expansion to reduction. sigh

I love the concept and upvoted but I really wish there was a [USA] tag. I'm on the other side of the world and I clicked, wondering if there are any airfields near where I live. I am still wondering.

(Side note to those who might know: beyond Juhu Aerodrome, does anyone know of any other such small airfields nearby?

A local library may have or know how to get access to your areas "sectional charts" - perhaps even historic ones, which show all these things.

India doesn't have as much of a flying culture as USA or Europe. Same for China. I think a big reason for that was WW2, at least in Europe's case. In the US, well, so much goddamn land just lying out there.

I've used this website to add a bunch of additional airfields in my (non-commercial, personal/hobby) flight sim that has procedurally generated runways, in the bay area specifically, so guy if you're reading this, thanks! Adds a lot of additional color to my sim flying experience.

I discovered this website in the mid-2000s when I was obsessing over the history of a former airfield (Stengel Airport). This site combined with Google Earth got me hooked on aerial photography (also worthy of mention- USGS EarthExplorer, and FDOT APLUS). Very glad to see the site mentioned.

https://historicaerials.com/ is also good too.

It would still help to add “in US” to the title

For the UK, there's a handy Wikipedia page with 57 defunct airports listed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_airports_in_E...

And also specifically former RAF stations (stations, airports and headquarters):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_Royal_Air_Force...

I came across this one by accident one day:-

* https://www.remotelondon.com/wisley-airfield-an-abandoned-ru...

Doing a long bike ride to visit a friend, the route I'd plotted suddenly found me in the middle of a big old runway, weird to see given it's alongside one of the major routes into London (one I've driven or motorbiked many times, but never cycled). Quite the shock to see, especially as it was a scramble to get through the bushes and cross the A3 to Wisley RHS.

What are the criteria for inclusion on this site? In no particular order I have a couple that could be added:

Plymouth Municipal in Plymouth, NH. GA grass strip, I believe. Follow the signs towards Quincy Bog from 93. If you go through a covered bridge shortly after turning off 25, you're on the right road.

Blueberry Hill in Western MA. Private grass strip. Former(?) home of The Cookie Lady. PYO Blueberries. About 10 miles north of Upper Goose Pond cabin on the Appalachian Trail. Northbound hikers will appreciate it greatly if southbound hikers bring blueberries for the pancakes the next morning.

Post Mills, VT. Grass strip, has very active soaring and ballooning communities. Home to the Vermontasaurus and a great deal of other folk art-type stuff. Worth a trip if you're in our particular middle of nowhere already. No, I did not know Brian Boland. He died before we moved to the area.

Tonopah, NV is on there. I spent a night with my tent pitched in their hangar (with permission) in 2006 bike touring out west. That one remains active.

Post Mills is most definitely active and they release sailplane tows over our house regularly. Often you can find someone setting up for a baloon flight on a nice morning. I've driven by Plymouth Municipal a bunch going to and from Rumney for climbing when I lived in Boston, and there were a bunch of planes last time I did that. Haven't been by Blueberry Hill in a while, but sure was happy to gorge myself on blueberries on my way to Katahdin in 2010!

This is really cool.

Every so often I see a yellow Piper Cub flying by just above window height (we live on top of a hill with no obstructions nearby) and I've wondered if it was flying out of a nearby airfield that I had never seen but saw signs for.

It turns out that airfield is now closed, but as I was browsing, I came across a photo of a yellow Cub at another nearby airfield. Wrong angle to see reg. numbers but I wonder if it's the same one?

I grew up near an abandoned WWII era airfield. I have fond memories of first learning to drive by going out and blasting along the runway, had to avoid a few spots where trees had grown up through cracks in the tarmac, but it didn't matter if I stalled out the truck and I could get it up to a good speed.

Have this bookmarked.

I love the Crissy Field section, considering what it is now and how recently it was being used.

https://airfields-freeman.com/CA/Airfields_CA_SanFran.htm#cr...

Very nice. I checked and, yes, my favorite is on there:

“The Santa Rosa Air Center was used to film Bruce Willis' 'Die Hard 2' in 1990

according to an article in the July 22 [2009] issue of the San Jose Mercury News.

The airport was used to depict [Washington] Dulles [International Airport] in the movie"

I jumped randomly to New York and then New York State: Central which has a delightful Ford ad advertising a plane joyride with an additional text stating that if you buy a car now or make a bonafide order for one to be delivered soon, you can have this joyride for free.

I adore this kind of websites. Dedicated to a lifelong hobby. We need more of that.

I'm right there with you. These used to be the types of site designs and layouts we didn't want "back in the day" but loading them up these days is like a breath of fresh air, like the old geocities, xoom, etc sites.

Even inspecting the source and seeing HTML 4.0 Transitional, the capitalized tags, the bunch of duplicated meta tags and openoffice as generator no longer gives me the creeps as it would a while ago.

It's a labor of love and only the content matters, everything else is irrelevant! Never change, we do need more of these!

It's a shame we don't have a better solution than the Internet Archive for preserving these after the creator is gone (or loses interest), but thank goodness we do have that. So many gems lost to time otherwise.

Then let me introduce you to one of my favorites in a similar style: https://www.lathes.co.uk/page21.html

For us lovers of Old Iron :-)

I felt a bit sad that the owner has to ask for donations to maintain it :(

It's a great site, but if it was meant as an archive, with today's resources, I reckon it could be hosted for free even. Idk, just feel a bit sad that the site would stop functioning if the owner couldn't afford to keep hosting it.

England also has a lot of disused airfields, often with huge hangers and stupendous concrete runways built during WWII. A few are open as museums. They can be worth a quick visit.

My family used to farm a chunk of land in Lincolnshire, UK. Many of our farms were on or surrounded by active or decommissioned RAF bases.

I learnt to drive on the unused tarmac at one of those old bases, RAF Wickenby. As the parent poster mentioned, many of the bases are worth a visit and Wickenby in particular has a memorial to airmen lost in the world wars.

Dunholme Lodge was defunct RAF base near the then active V-bomber base RAF Scampton. It was a favourite place for us RAF kids to explore - the concrete of the torn up runway provided all sorts of caves, and there was a deserted multi-storey control tower, which was quite frightening when the winds were blowing. This would have been the early 1960s - I think it is all farmland or new-build housing now.

That was on a neighbouring farm to one of ours. It’s just a bit of concrete in the middle of their fields now. You possibly got shouted at by my famously grumpy grandad.

In my experience ALL Lincolnshire farmers are grumpy. But we may have escaped as one of us was the local Police Constable's son.

Didn't see this before. My dad was a happy farmer, but the stereotype holds in general. Weather, markets, governments, voters (bloody Brexit) all attract farmers' ire. And even when it's going well, they're still working harder than 63.5% of the populace.

Seems the stereotype might have skipped a generation :)

Well, I don't think farmers had to worry so much about those things back when I was a chid - they seemed to just like shouting. It's not like there was much we could wreck - the last use of Dunholme Lodge (as far as I'm aware) was as a Bloodhound SAM battery, notionally protecting Scampton. Anyway, I enjoyed playing at the place (RAF did not unfortunately leave the odd missile around), and as I said I never encountered your grandpa. :-)

I got diverted to Roswell once and it was very cool flying in and seeing the airplane graveyard there. Not sure it’s little known but it was to me.

If the developer is here in this post, PLEASE orient your state listings properly.

I was very sad to see several north new jersey airports on this list.

Thanks for burning a couple hours of my day

I both love and hate the 90s web design of the page. Looking through my local area (Chicago near-west suburbs), it appears to be missing two airfields that used to be nearby: Cicero Field (which is mentioned but not listed) and another one that used to be in Forest Park (which is not even mentioned).

I didn’t know about the field that used to be in La Grange, whose location is now a gravel pit (which, combined with another one on the other side of Joliet Road is responsible for the closure of a stretch of historic Route 66 although the gravel pit operators insist that despite quarrying to within a dozen feet of the roadway on either side, they aren’t responsible for the subsistence of the road.

I read about the clandestine midnight destruction of Meigs Field, Chicago - somehow the first one I happened upon. The mayor had the runway bulldozed in the night so that no one could have time to object. Unbelievable and mildly infuriating story.

Apparently the main motivation was to have a legacy...

He did it while airplanes were still there and afterwards had no way to fly out.

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