Beverly Regional Airport is a city-owned, 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 surfa ...

located in Beverly, Danvers and

Wenham, Massachusetts Wenham () is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts. The population was 4,979 at the time of the 2020 census. The town of Wenham, originally settled in 1635 and incorporated in 1643, has retained much of its historic character and rural scenery ...

, in Essex County, three nautical miles (6 km) northwest of Beverly's central business district. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it 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 ...

'', which means it is available to relieve

Logan International Airport General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport , also known as Boston Logan International Airport and commonly as Boston Logan, Logan Airport or simply Logan, is an international airport that is located mostly in East Boston and partial ...

of small

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 ...

type aircraft during Logan's peak traffic times.

History

Beverly Regional Airport was built in 1928 through the efforts of the Beverly Aero Club and the Beverly Chamber of Commerce. The

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

operated the airport during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

under a joint-use agreement as Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Beverly. It existed as an auxiliary air facility of

Naval Air Station Squantum Naval Air Station Squantum was an active naval aviation facility during 1917 and from 1923 until 1953. The original civilian airfield that preceded it, the Harvard Aviation Field, dates back to 1910. The base was sited on Squantum Point in th ...

. It was commissioned on 15 May, 1943 and the airfield was upgraded with a new asphalt runway. The Navy built a control tower, a barracks, and other structures and consisted of four officers and sixty enlisted men. The field provided touch and go practice for students at

as well as

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

student pilots. Planes from

Coast Guard Air Station Salem Coast Guard Air Station Salem was a United States Coast Guard air station located in Salem, Massachusetts from 1935 to 1970. Its area of coverage extended from New York City to the Canada–United States border. Mission The air station's missi ...

also used the facility for maritime patrol, as well as a detachment from

VS-31 Sea Control Squadron 31 (VS-31) ''Topcats'' was a United States Navy anti-submarine warfare squadron. During WWII there was a scouting squadron which carried the designation VS-31. It was established as Scouting Squadron 31 in 1942, based at Naval ...

, which flew anti-submarine patrols with Douglas SBD-5 aircraft. It was decommissioned as a military facility on August 1, 1945. Ownership of the airport was transferred back to the City of Beverly in 1950.

Facilities and aircraft

Beverly Regional Airport covers an area of 470 acres (190 ha) at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Ver ...

of 107 feet (33 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. It has two

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, concre ...

s with

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

surfaces: 9/27 is 4,755 by 100 feet (1,449 x 30 m) and 16/34 is 5,001 by 100 feet (1,524 x 30 m). For the 12-month period ending October 1, 2011, the airport had 66,900 aircraft operations, an average of 183 per day: 99%

, 1%

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) ...

, and <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 ...

. At that time 103 aircraft were based at this airport: 84% single-

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

, 11% multi-engine, 3%

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 ...

, and 2% jet. Beverly Airport - MiG-15UTI Trainer Jet

Civil Air Patrol Squadron MA-019, Beverly Composite Squadron, is headquartered at Beverly Regional Airport in the old airport control tower. Something Different Cafe is located on the east side of the airport. It is open Tuesday-Sunday 7:00-2:00 and features breakfast and lunch menus.

Notable events

On July 16, 1936, bandleader

Orville Knapp Orville Knapp (January 1, 1904 - July 16, 1936) was an American dance bandleader born in Kansas City, Missouri. He was the brother of Evalyn Knapp. Orville Knapp was an autodidact on saxophone, and moved to New York City in the early 1920s, where h ...

, brother of actress

Evalyn Knapp Evalyn Knapp (born Evelyn Pauline Knapp; June 17, 1906 – June 12, 1981) was an American film actress of the late 1920s, 1930s and into the 1940s. She was a leading B-movie serial actress in the 1930s. She was the younger sister of the orche ...

, died in a plane crash here after he misjudged a landing maneuver and stalled in mid-air.

SCCA The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) is a non-profit American automobile club and sanctioning body supporting road racing, rallying, and autocross in the United States. Formed in 1944, it runs many programs for both amateur and professional ...

auto races were held at Beverly Airport in 1955 and 1956. The inaugural races were held on July 4, 1955. Phil Hill was the 1955 overall champion. The 1956 champion was

Carroll Shelby Carroll Hall Shelby (January 11, 1923 – May 10, 2012) was an American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur. Shelby is best known for his involvement with the AC Cobra and Mustang for Ford Motor Company, which he modified dur ...

. On May 9, 1989 Alfred James Hunter III, a postal worker who had shot and killed his ex-wife earlier that evening, stole an airplane (a

Cessna 152 The Cessna 152 is an American two-seat, fixed- tricycle-gear, general aviation airplane, used primarily for flight training and personal use. It was based on the earlier Cessna 150 incorporating a number of minor design changes and a slightly ...

two-seat trainer) at gunpoint from a flight instructor. During the flight, which stretched from Danvers to

Duxbury Duxbury (alternative older spelling: "Duxborough") is a historic seaside town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. A suburb located on the South Shore approximately to the southeast of Boston, the population was 16,090 at the 20 ...

, Hunter fired his gun at the ground below, buzzed the South Postal Annex in Boston several times, and briefly touched down at Logan Airport before taking off again. He landed at Logan more than three hours later and was arrested after a minor struggle with police. A scene in the 2000 film '' The Perfect Storm'', was shot at Beverly Airport. In May 2008, a scene for the movie '' The Proposal'' was filmed at Beverly Airport. On August 27, 2010, Michael Costales, age 30, a flight instructor at Beverly Regional Airport, was struck and killed by an aircraft's moving propeller. Costales had taxied his aircraft out to the run-up area of runway 34 at the airport, the active runway at the time. At about 12:30 PM, Costales got out of his Piper PA 28 Cherokee aircraft to assist another flight instructor and his student with fastening the canopy of their PiperSport aircraft. As Costales got out of his aircraft and walked toward the other aircraft, he was struck by his aircraft's propeller and killed instantly. The student pilot in the PiperSport aircraft declared an emergency with the Control Tower, who then called 911. The airport was subsequently shut down for several hours as an investigation was conducted.

Airlines and destinations

References

External links