Hillsdale 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 three nautical miles (6 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 Hillsdale, in

Hillsdale County Hillsdale County is a county located in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 45,746. The county seat is Hillsdale. Hillsdale County is the only county in Michigan to border both Indiana and Ohio. Due to an a ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

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 included in the

Federal Aviation Administration 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 ...

(FAA)

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 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a local

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. The airport is accessible by road from Entrance Road and is located near M-99. 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 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 ...

, this airport is assigned KJYM by the

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 ...

History

The first airport in Hillsdale was known as Robards' Field. A new airport was built in 1934 in an attempt to attract transcontinental flights who could land there instead of in Detroit or Chicago. This new airport hosted the Kiwanis Club’s first Fly-In on Aug. 10, 1948, which attracted 60 aircraft from around the midwest. The second airport fell toward disrepair in the 1950s. Amid a dwindling economy, only the Hillsdale Aviation Club kept the airport running. Requests to the government to keep the airport running went unanswered. The land on which the second airport sat was sold in 1960, and it became the Hillsdale Industrial Park. New land was purchased for a larger airport, and the modern airport opened in 1963. The first airport manager was a former flight engineer at

Eastern Airlines Eastern Air Lines, also colloquially known as Eastern, was a major United States airline from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County, Florida. Ea ...

. The airport has been cited as a major source of traffic for the surrounding area, which is not connected by any major

highways A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

. It supports traffic into

Hillsdale College Hillsdale College is a Private university, private Conservatism in the United States, conservative Christian liberal arts college in Hillsdale, Michigan. It was founded in 1844 by Abolitionism, abolitionists known as Free Will Baptists. Its missio ...

as well as business traffic and recreational pilots.

Facilities and aircraft

Facilities

Hillsdale Municipal Airport covers an area of 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 1,184feet (360 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has one

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 ...

designated 10/28 with an asphalt surface measuring 5,000 by 100 feet (1,524 x 30 m). Since 2015, the airport has plans for a variety of upgrades to make the airport more easily navigable. This includes adding and expanding taxiways to connect runways with the airport's

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...

, fuel farm, and

hangars A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

. As of May 2022, studies are being conducted to determine the need and best locations for a new terminal at the airport. When the old terminal can be demolished, it will be replaced with new taxiways to provide space for parallel taxiways to support full-length runway departures. The airport is staffed 12 months a year 8am-4:30pm Monday through Friday, 8am - 12:00pm Saturday and closed on Sundays. The terminal and fuel can be accessed 24 hours a day.

Aircraft

For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2021, the airport had 9,855

aircraft operations, an average of 27 per day. At that time there were 13 aircraft based at this airport: 12 single-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 ...

and 1 jet.

Accidents and incidents

*On August 10, 2006, a Flight Design CTSW was damaged during a hard landing at Hillsdale Municipal Airport. The pilot, who had just finished an hour of dual instruction in the aircraft, reported he touched down hard, bounced, and touched down hard a second time, at which point the nose landing gear bent and the plane went off the side of the runway. The broken nose gear became stuck in the grass and the aircraft nosed over. The probable cause was found to be the pilot's misjudged flare, resulting in a hard landing, and his improper recovery from the bounced landing, which resulted in the overload failure of the nose landing gear and subsequent nose over. *On June 24, 2007, an Aeronca 7EC Champion crashed on landing at Hillsdale. At the end of the landing roll, a gust of wind pushed the tail of the airplane left. The pilot applied brakes to avoid hitting a runway marker, but he applied too much brake at the tail came over, the prop struck, and the plane became inverted. The probable cause was found to be the pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during the rollout. *On November 21, 2012, a

Piper Cherokee The Piper PA-28 Cherokee is a family of two-seat or four-seat light aircraft built by Piper Aircraft and designed for flight training, air taxi and personal use.Plane and Pilot: ''1978 Aircraft Directory'', pages 62–64. Werner & Werner Corp, ...

impacted trees and terrain while on approach to Hillsdale. The pilot had flown to Ohio to have lunch before returning to Hillsdale at sunset. Another pilot who had landed soon before reported hazy conditions but that the pilot controlled lighting was visible from at least 5 miles away. The probable cause was found to be the pilot's failure to maintain clearance from terrain during a straight-in night visual flight rules approach to land in hazy weather conditions.

References

External links

* * at Michigan Airport Directory
Aerial photo as of 23 April 1998
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the effort is to prov ...

'' * {{US-airport-ga, JYM, - Airports in Michigan Buildings and structures in Hillsdale County, Michigan Transportation in Hillsdale County, Michigan Hillsdale, Michigan