Newport State Airport (officially known as the Colonel Robert F. Wood Air Park) is a state-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 ...

Newport County, Rhode Island Newport County is one of five counties located in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. As of the 2020 census, the population was 85,643. It is also one of the seven regions of Rhode Island. The county was created in 1703. Like all of the counties in ...

, United States. It serves the city of Newport and is located northeast of its central business district. This airport is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, 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. There is no scheduled airline service available, but it once was served by Air New England. 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, this airport is assigned UUU by the FAA and NPT by the IATA (which assigned UUU to Manumu,

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

). Newport State Airport is one of six active airports operated by the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, the other five being T.F. Green State Airport,

North Central State Airport North Central State Airport is a public use airport in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The airport is owned by the State of Rhode Island and opened for service in 1951. It serves the northern portion of the Providence metropolit ...

Westerly State Airport Westerly State Airport is a public use airport in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. It serves the town of Westerly and is located southeast of its central business district. It is primarily a general aviation airport, but there i ...

Quonset State Airport Quonset State Airport is a joint civil-military public airport located on Quonset Point, in northeastern North Kingstown, Rhode Island, United States, adjacent to Narragansett Bay. It is a general aviation airport and there is no scheduled airl ...

, and

Block Island State Airport Block Island State Airport is a public use airport located on Block Island, in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The airport is owned by the State of Rhode Island. It is primarily a general aviation airport, but there is also ...

History

The airport site was known as Southwick's Grove in the mid-to-late 1800s. At the turn of the twentieth century the site was home to Aquidneck Park, a horse racing track. Wealthy summer residents such as Willie K Vanderbilt,

John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by History of opium in China, smuggl ...

and I. Townsend Burden would occasionally race automobiles of various types there. The property was renamed Bethshan-in-the-Woods by Mrs. Theodore K. Gibbs, who had purchased it to preserve the property as a picnic ground for children. Army Air Force Captain Robert F. Wood established the Newport Air Park on the site in 1946. It appears on topographical maps of the area by 1958 with two airstrips—one along the current 4/22 orientation, and a nearly perpendicular one. They were paved by 1953, when the airport received an Air Force contract to maintain planes for keeping local Air Force pilots current. The airport site was acquired by the state in July 1960, and new construction of the

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 and

taxiway A taxiway is a path for aircraft at an airport connecting runways with aprons, hangars, terminals and other facilities. They mostly have a hard surface such as asphalt or concrete, although smaller general aviation airports sometimes use gravel ...

s was completed by September 1967. In July 1964, the first aircraft accident at the Newport airport (a

gear A gear is a rotating circular machine part having cut teeth or, in the case of a cogwheel or gearwheel, inserted teeth (called ''cogs''), which mesh with another (compatible) toothed part to transmit (convert) torque and speed. The basic ...

-up landing) was documented by the National Transportation Safety Board. The first fatal accident at Newport State Airport was a mid-air collision between two general aviation aircraft on April 23, 1969. In 2011 part of the film

Moonrise Kingdom ''Moonrise Kingdom'' is a 2012 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson, written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, and starring Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzm ...

was filmed at the airport.

Facilities and aircraft

Newport State 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 § Ver ...

of 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

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: *Runway 4/22 is . *Runway 16/34 is . For the 12-month period ending June 30, 2011, the airport had 20,238 aircraft operations, an average of 55 per day: 98%

, 2%

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 there were 34 aircraft based at this airport: 85% 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 ...

, 9% multi-engine, and 6%

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 ...

Airlines and destinations

References

External links

Newport State Airport (UUU)
page from Rhode Island Airport Corp. *
Aerial image as of March 1995
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 pro ...

'' * {{RI Airport Airports in Rhode Island Transportation buildings and structures in Newport County, Rhode Island Buildings and structures in Middletown, Rhode Island