Freeman Municipal 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 two

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...

s (4 km) southwest 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 Seymour, a city in

Jackson County, Indiana Jackson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of 2010, the population was 42,376. The county seat is Brownstown. History Jackson County was formed in 1816. It was named after General Andrew Jackson. Jackson County was ...

, United States. It is owned by the Seymour Airport Authority. This airport is included in the

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. NPIAS was developed and now maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It identifies existing and proposed airports tha ...

for 2021–2025, which categorized it as a ''

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 ...

'' facility.

History

Established 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 ...

in 1942, it became first USAAF helicopter training school in June 1944. Black aviators, including a group of

Tuskegee Airmen The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332d Fighter Group and the 477th Fighter Group, 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the ...

, trained at Freeman Field. In April 1945, several black officers tried to integrate an officers' club resulting in what became known as the " Freeman Field Mutiny". The mutiny is generally regarded by historians of the Civil Rights Movement as an important step toward full integration of the armed forces and as a model for later efforts to integrate public facilities through civil disobedience. After the end of

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 opposin ...

, Freeman AAF became a storage depot of many captured German and Italian aircraft (

Operation Lusty Operation LUSTY (LUftwaffe Secret TechnologY) was the United States Army Air Forces' effort to capture and evaluate German aeronautical technology during and after World War II. Overview During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Forces Intelligence ...

). Training at the field had stopped and it became the site for the storage of American and foreign aircraft. Freeman Field was closed and declared surplus on December 30, 1946. It was deactivated in November 1948 and turned over to local civilian authorities for use as a civil airport.

Facilities and aircraft

Freeman Municipal Airport covers an area of 2,100

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s (850 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 § Vert ...

of 583 feet (178 m) above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. It has two

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 a ...

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: 14/32 is 5,502 by 100 feet (1,677 x 30 m) and 5/23 is 6,001 by 100 feet (1,829 x 30 m). It also has two unpaved

turf Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls. In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricultu ...

runways: 18U/36U is 1,200 by 100 feet (366 x 30 m) and 9U/27U is 1,000 by 100 feet (305 x 30 m). For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2017, the airport had 20,786 aircraft operations, an average of 57 per day: 78%

, 21%

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%

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 ...

. In April 2022, there were 67 aircraft based at this airport: 42 single-engine, 8 multi-engine, 2

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 15 gliders.

References

External links

Freeman Field Air Museum
(OFFICIAL site for Freeman Field) * * {{US-airport-minor, SER, SER, KSER Airports in Indiana Transportation buildings and structures in Jackson County, Indiana Airports established in 1942 1942 establishments in Indiana