Chicago/Aurora Municipal Airport is a public

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

opened in April 1966, located in the village of Sugar Grove,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

, United States, west of the city of

Aurora An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

, both in Kane County. The airport is owned and operated by the City of Aurora. It is west of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and is designated as a

reliever airport A relief airport or reliever airport is an airport that is built or designated to provide relief or additional capacity to an area when the primary commercial airport(s) requires additional capacity, on a long-term or temporary basis. Reliever a ...

for Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports. Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter

location identifier A location identifier is a symbolic representation for the name and the location of an airport, navigation aid, or weather station, and is used for staffed air traffic control facilities in air traffic control, telecommunications, computer programm ...

for both the

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

and

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...

, Chicago/Aurora Municipal Airport is assigned ARR by the FAA and AUZ by the IATA (which assigned ARR to Alto Río Senguer Airport in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

). The airport's

ICAO The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international a ...

identifier is KARR. The airport is home to the Air Classics museum of Aviation, which strives to preserve aviation's role throughout history.

Facilities and aircraft

Aurora Municipal Airport covers an area of , and contains three

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s: * Runway 9/27: 6,501 x 100 ft (1,982 x 30 m), surface: concrete * Runway 15/33: 5,503 x 100 ft (1,677 x 30 m), surface: concrete * Runway 18/36: 3,198 x 75 ft (975 x 23 m), surface: asphalt For the 12-month period ending April 30, 2022, the airport had 76,650 aircraft operations, an average of 210 per day: 98%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

, 2%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) an ...

, <1%

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

, and <1%

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

. For the same time period, there are 197 aircraft based on the field: 144 single-engine and 23 multi-engine

airplanes An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectr ...

, 24 jets, 5

helicopters A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

, and 1

glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...

. J.A. Air Center and Revv Aviation are the airport's two

fixed-base operator A fixed-base operator (FBO) is an organization granted the right by an airport to operate at the airport and provide aeronautical services such as fueling, hangaring, tie-down and parking, aircraft rental, aircraft maintenance, flight instruction, ...

s (FBOs). Together, they offer services such as fuel, general maintenance, hangars, courtesy cars and shuttles, conference rooms, crew lounges, snooze rooms, and more. They also offer

flight training Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills. Flight training can be conducted under a str ...

, aircraft rentals, and charter service businesses. The airport received money from the Rebuild Illinois program, designed in 2021 to help airports complete upgrades and stay open during the

covid-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, to rehabilitate parking lots, the entrance road, and perimeter roadways. In late 2022, the airport authority approved plans to upgrade hangars and other facilities.

Incidents

*On June 13, 2011, the aircraft Liberty Belle, a

B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...

crashed in

Oswego, Illinois Oswego is a village in Kendall and Will Counties, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 34,485. Oswego is the largest municipality in Kendall County. It is a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. History In 1833, William Sm ...

after taking off from Aurora. Early reports indicate that shortly after takeoff the pilot reported an engine fire, and attempted to return to the airfield. He was unable to do so, however, and chose instead to put the aircraft down in a nearby cornfield with seven people on board, all of whom were reported to be safe.

Gallery

References

External links

* * *
{{Aviation in Illinois Airports in Kane County, Illinois Sugar Grove, Illinois Transportation in Aurora, Illinois