North Texas Regional Airport / Perrin Field is a county-owned

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 ...

Grayson County, Texas Grayson County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, its population was 135,543. The county seat is Sherman, Texas, Sherman. The county was founded in 1846 and is named ...

between

Sherman Sherman most commonly refers to: *Sherman (name), a surname and given name (and list of persons with the name) ** William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891), American Civil War General *M4 Sherman, a tank Sherman may also refer to: Places United St ...

and Denison. Formerly Grayson County Airport, the airport was renamed in November 2007. Several buildings are occupied by businesses, Grayson County government agencies, and

Grayson County College Grayson College is a public community college in Grayson County, Texas. The main campus is in Denison and it has branch campuses in Denison (west extension, at the site of the old Perrin Air Force Base) and Van Alstyne (south campus). Histo ...

. 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, but this airport is GYI to the FAA and PNX to the IATA (which assigned GYI to Gisenyi Airport in Gisenyi, Rwanda). The northern extension of State Highway 289 passes the airport on the west side.

History

The airport is on the site of Perrin Air Force Base, which was built in 1941 and closed in 1971. Since the closure, a group of local citizens have held the memory of Perrin together, hosting nine Perrin Field reunions since the early 1980s. The Perrin AFB Research Foundation was established in 1998. Today, in addition to serving as a general aviation airport, several businesses, as well as a juvenile detention center/boot-camp and adult probation center are built upon former barracks and nearby areas. There is a small museum dedicated to the former Perrin Air Force Base at the airport and

uses several buildings. The college also operates the former base golf course. North Texas Regional Airport

After seeing the fighters take off from here as a young man, aviation expert

Chesley Sullenberger Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III (born January 23, 1951) is a retired American fighter pilot, diplomat, and airline pilot best known for his heroism as captain of US Airways Flight 1549 that he ditched in the Hudson River in 2009 af ...

(best known as the pilot of

US Airways Flight 1549 US Airways Flight 1549 was a regularly scheduled US Airways flight from New York City (LaGuardia Airport), to Charlotte and Seattle, in the United States. On January 15, 2009, the Airbus A320 serving the flight struck a flock of birds short ...

) became interested in flying. In late 2018, the proposed Christian airline Judah 1 moved to North Texas Regional, but was subsequently unsuccessful in its efforts to obtain an

air operator's certificate An air operator's certificate (AOC) is the approval granted by a civil aviation authority (CAA) to an aircraft operator to allow it to use aircraft for commercial purposes. This requires the operator to have personnel, assets, and system in plac ...

and begin scheduled flights. In early 2020, Judah 1 moved to Shreveport Regional Airport, citing a lack of hangar space and facilities suitable for

Transportation Security Administration The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within, and connecting to the United States. It was created ...

use at North Texas Regional; the airport manager stated that the move would have little impact, as Judah 1 had never started airline operations.

Facilities

The airport covers 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 749 feet (228 m). It has two

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: 17L/35R is 9,000 by 150 feet (2,743 x 46 m) asphalt/concrete; 13/31 is 2,277 by 60 feet (694 x 18 m) asphalt. It had three runways, but one 8,000'(2,438m) runway is now a

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 ...

. The airport has a Category I

instrument landing system In aviation, the instrument landing system (ILS) is a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather. In its original form, it allows an aircraft to ...

(ILS) to Runway 17L. The former USAF control tower resumed operations in mid-2008. In the year ending April 30, 2007 the airport had 53,300 aircraft operations, average 146 per day: 98%

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 ...

, 2% military and <1%

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) ...

. 169 aircraft were then based at the airport: 73% single-engine, 11% multi-engine, 11% jet, 4%

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 1%

ultralight Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with aile ...

References

External links

Perrin Field Historical Society and Museum

Sherman/Denison, North Texas Rgnl / Perrin Field (GYI)
at

Texas DOT The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT ) is a government agency in the American state of Texas. Though the public face of the agency is generally associated with the construction and maintenance of the state's immense state highway system ...

Airport Directory * {{Authority control Airports in Texas Buildings and structures in Grayson County, Texas Transportation in Grayson County, Texas