St. Louis Downtown Airport is a public-use

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 ...

located in

Greater St. Louis Greater St. Louis is a bi-state metropolitan area that completely surrounds and includes the independent city of St. Louis, the principal city. It includes parts of both Missouri and Illinois. The city core is on the Mississippi Riverfront on t ...

, one mile (2 km) east of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

of Cahokia Heights, in St. Clair County,

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 The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is owned by the

Bi-State Development Agency Metro Transit is an enterprise of Bi-State Development, an interstate compact formed by Missouri and Illinois in 1949. Its operating budget in 2016 was $280 million, which is funded by sales taxes from the City of St. Louis and St. Louis Count ...

. The airport is located less than 3 miles from the

Gateway Arch The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources conside ...

riverfront in St. Louis and is used by many business aircraft visiting the St. Louis region. Airport services include one full-service 24-hour fixed-base operator, an instrument landing system, an FAA air traffic control tower, and its own dedicated Index B aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) service. It is utilized mainly by

Saint Louis University Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...

Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology is a college within Saint Louis University. History de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver restored by Parks students in 1991 Founding Parks Air College was founded by Oliver Parks in the city of ...

for training purposes, as well as the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals hav ...

for charter flights to away games. The St. Louis metropolitan area is also served by

St. Louis Lambert International Airport St. Louis Lambert International Airport is the primary commercial airport serving metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Commonly referred to as Lambert Field or simply Lambert, it is the largest and busiest airport in the state o ...

St. Louis County, Missouri St. Louis County is located in the eastern-central portion of Missouri. It is bounded by the City of St. Louis and the Mississippi River to the east, the Missouri River to the north, and the Meramec River to the south. At the 2020 census, th ...

;

MidAmerica St. Louis Airport MidAmerica St. Louis Airport is a public use airport next to Scott Air Force Base. It is 14 nautical miles (16 mi, 26 km) east of the central business district of Belleville and 18 nautical miles (21 mi, 33 ...

Belleville, Illinois Belleville is a city and the county seat of St. Clair County, Illinois, coterminous with the now defunct Belleville Township. It is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville and the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows. The p ...

;

St. Louis Regional Airport St. Louis Regional Airport is a public airport four miles (6 km) east of Alton, in Madison County, Illinois, United States. It is in the village of Bethalto but its mailing address is East Alton. Its operations are paid for by an airpor ...

Bethalto, Illinois Bethalto is a village located in Madison County, Illinois, United States. Bethalto, like the rest of Madison County, is part of the Illinois Metro East portion of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Early in its history, the village was a ...

; and

Spirit of St. Louis Airport Spirit of St. Louis Airport is a public airport located 17 miles (27 km) west of the central business district of St. Louis, in St. Louis County, Missouri, in the city of Chesterfield, United States. It is owned by St. Louis County and na ...

Chesterfield, Missouri Chesterfield is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is a western suburb of St. Louis. As of the 2020 census, the population was 49,999, . The broader valley of Chesterfield was originally referred to as "Gumbo Flats", derived ...

Facilities and aircraft

St. Louis Downtown Airport covers an area of which contains three paved

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: 12R/30L measuring 7,002 x 150 ft. (2,134 x 46 m), 12L/30R measuring 5,301 x 75 ft. (1,616 x 23 m), and 5/23 measuring 2,799 x 75 ft. (853 x 23 m). For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2021, the airport had 103,000 aircraft operations per year, an average of 284 per day. This includes 88%

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 ...

, 11%

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 ...

, and <1% of both

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 ...

and

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 ...

. This was down from 170,000 annual operations in 2005. At that time there were 111 aircraft based at this airport: 77 single-engine and 14 multi-engine

airplane 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 spe ...

s, 13

helicopter 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 ...

s, 6 jets, 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 ...

. This was down from 170,000 annual operations and 281 based aircraft in 2005. Historic Hangar #2 houses the

Greater Saint Louis Air & Space Museum The Greater Saint Louis Air & Space Museum is a museum with the mission to preserve and display historic air and space craft and artifacts, and provide educational programs. Architecture The museum is housed in the Curtiss Wright Hangar number ...

. The airport is still home to the nation's oldest flight school, Parks College of Engineering and Aviation's Center for Aerospace Sciences, which holds CAA Flight School Certificate #1.

History

Curtiss-Wright hangar at St Louis Downtown

The airport opened in 1929 as Curtiss-Steinberg Airport. In 1940 it was renamed Curtiss-Parks Airport, followed by Parks Metropolitan Airport later that same year. Taken over by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

on 1 August 1939 as a basic (level 1) pilot training airfield. Assigned to USAAF Gulf Coast Training Center (later Central Flying Training Command). Parks Air College conducted contract basic flying training. Flying training was performed with

Fairchild PT-19 The Fairchild PT-19 (company designation Fairchild M62) is an American monoplane primary trainer aircraft that served with the United States Army Air Forces, RAF and RCAF during World War II. Designed by Fairchild Aircraft, it was a contempora ...

s as the primary trainer. Also had several

PT-17 Stearman The Stearman (Boeing) Model 75 is a biplane formerly used as a military trainer aircraft, of which at least 10,626 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Stearman Aircraft became a subsidiary of Boeing in 1934. Widely known ...

s and a few

P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and ...

s assigned. Inactivated 12 March 1944 with the drawdown of AAFTC's pilot training program. The airport closed in 1959 and reopened six years later as Bi-State Parks Airport. It was renamed St. Louis Downtown-Parks Airport in 1984 and received its current name in 1999. The two survivors of the airport's original four hangars, Hangar 1 and Hangar 2, are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Past airline service

In 1971, Air Mid-America Airlines was operating scheduled passenger flights from the airport nonstop to

Chicago Midway Airport Chicago Midway International Airport , typically referred to as Midway Airport, Chicago Midway, or simply Midway, is a major commercial airport on the Southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, located approximately 12 miles (19 km) from the Lo ...

(MDW) and

Springfield, IL Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest o ...

(SPI) with 40-passenger

Convair 600 The Convair CV-240 is an American airliner that Convair manufactured from 1947 to 1954, initially as a possible replacement for the ubiquitous Douglas DC-3. Featuring a more modern design with cabin pressurization, the 240 series made some inroa ...

turboprop airliners. In 1984,

Air Midwest Air Midwest, Inc., was a Federal Aviation Administration Part 121 certificated air carrier that operated under air carrier certificate number AMWA510A issued on May 15, 1965. It was headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, United States, and was a sub ...

was operating scheduled passenger flights from the airport nonstop to

(MDW) and

Kansas City Downtown Airport Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport serving Kansas City, Missouri. Located in Clay County, this facility is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, which categorized it as a general aviat ...

(MKC) with

Swearingen Metro The Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner (previously the Swearingen Metro and later Fairchild Aerospace Metro) is a 19-seat, pressurized, twin-turboprop airliner first produced by Swearingen Aircraft and later by Fairchild Aircraft at a plant in San ...

II commuter propjets.

Accidents and incidents

*On January 22, 2018, a helicopter crashed during low flight on a training mission near the airport. Neither the student or instructor on board were injured. *On May 23, 2019, a helicopter crashed while operating at the airport. Neither the student nor the instructor on board were injured.

References

* Manning, Thomas A. (2005), ''History of Air Education and Training Command, 1942–2002''. Office of History and Research, Headquarters, AETC, Randolph AFB, Texas * Shaw, Frederick J. (2004), ''Locating Air Force Base Sites, History’s Legacy'', Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, Washington DC.

External links