HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Millville Executive Airport is in Millville, in Cumberland County,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
. The airport, southwest of the Millville city center, is owned by the
Delaware River and Bay Authority The Delaware River and Bay Authority or DRBA is a bi-state government agency of the U.S. states of New Jersey and Delaware established by an interstate compact in 1962. The authority operates the Delaware Memorial twin suspension bridges, t ...
(DRBA) and the City of Millville. It was dubbed "America's First Defense Airport" because of the nearly 1,500 pilots who trained in gunnery practice at the airport with the
Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...
P-47 "Thunderbolt" plane during World War II.


Overview

The airport is used for
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 is home to Dallas Airmotive, Cooper 1 Ambulance operated by
Cooper University Hospital Cooper University Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility located in Camden, New Jersey. The hospital formerly served as a clinical campus of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the University of Medicine and Dentistry ...
, Atlantic Air Ambulance, and PHI Helicopters.


Facilities

The airport covers at an elevation of 85 feet (26 m). It has two runways: 10/28 is 6,002 by 150 feet (1,829 x 46 m) asphalt and 14/32 is 5,057 by 150 feet (1,541 x 46 m) concrete. In 2010 the airport had 60,000 aircraft operations, average 164 per day: 95% general aviation and 5% military. 73 aircraft were then based at the airport: 78% single-engine, 12% multi-engine, 8% jet and 1%
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 ...
. Big Sky Aviation is the current FBO on the field serving general aviation traffic, with full service 100LL Avgas and Jet A fuel. Services include aircraft maintenance, fixed wing flight instruction and scenic flights. On sight is a diner, Verna’s Flight Line Restaurant.


Free trade zone

Millville Airport is part of United States
Free Trade Zone A free-trade zone (FTZ) is a class of special economic zone. It is a geographic area where goods may be imported, stored, handled, manufactured, or reconfigured and re-exported under specific customs regulation and generally not subject to cust ...
#142, which includes the
Port of Salem The Port of Salem is a shallow-draft (16 feet) port in the vicinity of the Salem River Cut-Off on the Salem River in Salem, New Jersey in the United States about east of the Delaware River and about from the Atlantic Ocean. It was re-designat ...
and licensed to the
South Jersey Port Corporation South Jersey Port Corporation (SJPC) is an independent public port authority which operates the ports along the eastern banks of Delaware River in the Delaware Valley region of southern New Jersey in the United States. Based in Camden, SJPC was ...
(SJPC).


History

The Millville airport was dedicated on August 2, 1941, by local, state, and federal officials. The first contingent of Air Corps personnel arrived on 17 December 1942. In less than a year construction of base facilities began, and in January 1943, the Millville Army Air Field opened as a
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 ...
gunnery school for fighter pilots. It was assigned to
First Air Force The First Air Force (Air Forces Northern; 1 AF-AFNORTH) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Air Combat Command (ACC). It is headquartered at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. Its primary mission is the air defense of the Cont ...
. Gunnery training began with Curtiss
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, but after a few weeks the P-40s were gone, and the Republic
P-47 Thunderbolt The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is a World War II-era fighter aircraft produced by the American company Republic Aviation from 1941 through 1945. It was a successful high-altitude fighter and it also served as the foremost American fighter-bombe ...
ruled the skies over Cumberland County. During its three-year existence, thousands of soldiers and civilians served here, with about 1,500 pilots receiving advanced fighter training in the Thunderbolt. The 361st Fighter Group trained at Millville during July and August 1943 prior to their deployment to Ninth Air Force in England. In 1944 the 135th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Flying) took control of the airfield. On 30 October 1945 Millville AAF was inactivated and on 31 December the airfield was declared excess to the governments needs, and returned to the City of Millville through the War Assets Administration (WAA). Most of the airport buildings were converted to apartments for the many veterans returning from the war. The last of the apartments vanished in the early 1970s, and the airport became a hub of industry and aviation for Southern New Jersey. The original base headquarters and
Link Trainer The term Link Trainer, also known as the "Blue box" and "Pilot Trainer" is commonly used to refer to a series of flight simulators produced between the early 1930s and early 1950s by Link Aviation Devices, founded and headed by Ed Link, based on ...
buildings today house the Millville Army Air Field Museum.


In popular culture

The airport is a setting in the television show ''
The Blacklist ''The Blacklist'' is an American crime thriller television series that premiered on NBC on September 23, 2013. The show follows Raymond "Red" Reddington (James Spader), a former U.S. Navy officer turned high-profile criminal who voluntarily s ...
'', season 1, episode 21, "Berlin (No. 8)".


See also

*
List of airports in New Jersey This is a list of airports in New Jersey (a U.S. state), grouped by type and sorted by location. It contains all public-use and military airports in the state. Some private-use and former airports may be included where notable, such as airports t ...
*
New Jersey World War II Army Airfields During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) established numerous airfields in New Jersey for training pilots and aircrews of USAAF fighters and bombers. Most of these airfields were under the command of First Air Force or the A ...


References


Sources


History of Millville Airport
retrieved January 16, 2006 *


External links

*
Big Sky Aviation
the airport's
fixed-base operator A fixed-base operator (FBO) is an organization granted the right by an airport to operate at the airport and provide aeronautical services such as fueling, hangaring, tie-down and parking, aircraft rental, aircraft maintenance, flight instruction ...
(FBO)
Millville Army Air Field Museum
*
{{USAAF 1st Air Force World War II 1943 establishments in New Jersey Airports established in 1943 Delaware River and Bay Authority facilities Millville, New Jersey Transportation buildings and structures in Cumberland County, New Jersey