Joshua Sanford Field was 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 one

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 ...

(2 km) northeast 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 Hillsboro, a city in

Vernon County, Wisconsin Vernon County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 30,714. Its county seat is Viroqua. History Vernon County was renamed from Bad Ax County on March 22, 1862. Bad Ax County had been created on ...

, United States. It was owned by the City of Hillsboro. The airport closed sometime in the fall of 2016, due to it being unsafe to operate from due to the nearby

Land O'Lakes Land O'Lakes, Inc. is an American member-owned agricultural cooperative based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Arden Hills, Minnesota, United States, focusing on the dairy industry. The cooperative has 1,959 direct producer-members, 751 m ...

butter plant being expanded right off the runway threshold. The airport was no longer listed in the November 10, 2016 publication of the FAA

Airport/Facility Directory The ''Airport/Facility Directory'' (abbreviated ''A/FD''), now identified as Chart Supplement in the U.S., is a pilot's manual that provides comprehensive information on airports, large and small, and other aviation facilities and procedures. Des ...

. Although many 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 facility was assigned HBW by the FAA but had no designation from the IATA.

Facilities and aircraft

Joshua Sanford Field covers an area of 16

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 (6 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 938 feet (286 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 5/23 with an

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 ...

surface measuring 3,070 by 46 feet (936 x 14 m). For the 12-month period ending June 9, 2015, the airport had 1,405 aircraft operations, an average of 117 per month: roughly 99%

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 ...

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 September 2016, there were 7 aircraft based at this airport: all 7 single-engine.

Closing of the airport

The airport was closed because of the expansion of the

butter plant, which is next to the airport. There were talks about transforming it into private members only airport. The airport would then shorten the runway to accommodate for the nearby obstacles. This plan failed when the FAA refused to allow the runway to be shortened.

References

{{Aviation in Wisconsin Defunct airports in the United States Airports in Wisconsin Vernon County, Wisconsin Buildings and structures in Vernon County, Wisconsin 2016 disestablishments in Wisconsin