Sacramento McClellan Airport is a privately 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 surface ...
located six miles (10 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
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
(a city in
Sacramento County
Sacramento County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,585,055. Its county seat is Sacramento, which has been the state capital of California since 1854.
Sacramento County is the ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
,
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 ...
).
[
The airport is on the former site of ]McClellan Air Force Base
McClellan Air Force Base (1935–2001) is a former United States Air Force base located in the North Highlands area of Sacramento County, northeast of Sacramento, California.
History
For the vast majority of its operational lifetime, McClella ...
, which existed as a military base from 1939 to 2000. It was transferred to Sacramento County in 2000, as part of its conversion into McClellan Business Park, and was purchased by McClellan Business Park in October 2017. The airport is a public-use facility which operates as an uncontrolled airfield in what the FAA designates as Class "E" Airspace. The airport is mainly used for general aviation. Current airport tenants include Calstar, the California Department of Forestry
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) is the fire department of the California Natural Resources Agency in the U.S. state of California. It is responsible for fire protection in various areas under state responsibi ...
, United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...
, Air Station Sacramento, Dassault Falcon
The Dassault Falcon is a family of business jets, manufactured by Dassault Aviation.
July 2017 saw the 2,500th Falcon delivered – a Falcon 900LX – since the first Falcon 20 was handed over to a customer in 1965. The fleet has accumula ...
, United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...
, PODS, and the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District
The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District provides fire protection and emergency medical services to many unincorporated areas of Sacramento County, California as well as multiple contract cities. The fire district is responsible for the citie ...
. All ground handling and fueling is completed by McClellan Jet Services, a subsidiary of McClellan Business Park.
History
The air force base was established in 1935. It was named after Major Hezekiah McClellan on 1 December 1939, a pioneer in arctic aeronautical tests. Born in 1894, he died on 25 May 1936 when his Consolidated P-30
The Consolidated P-30 (PB-2) was a 1930s United States two-seat fighter aircraft. An attack version called the A-11 was also built, along with two Y1P-25 prototypes and YP-27, Y1P-28, and XP-33 proposals. The P-30 is significant for being the fi ...
which he was flight testing, crashed near Centerville, Ohio
Centerville is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States. A core suburb of Metro Dayton, its population was 24,240 as of the 2020 census.
Geography
Centerville is located at (39.638709, -84.148087). Although the city is located primar ...
.
Construction of the Pacific Air Depot began in 1935, and the main structures, including administrative buildings, barracks, warehouses and a hospital were completed on 18 April 1938. In 1938 the base was renamed Sacramento Air Depot and underwent a major expansion as a repair and overhaul facility for P-38
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American single-seat, twin piston-engined fighter aircraft that was used during World War II. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps by the Lockheed Corporation, the P-38 incorporated a distinctive twi ...
and P-39
The Bell P-39 Airacobra is a fighter aircraft, fighter produced by Bell Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was one of the principal American fighters in service when the United States entered combat. The P-39 ...
fighter planes.
In December 1941, soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
, P-40s as well as Martin B-26 Marauder
The Martin B-26 Marauder is an American twin-engined medium bomber that saw extensive service during World War II. The B-26 was built at two locations: Baltimore, Maryland, and Omaha, Nebraska, by the Glenn L. Martin Company.
First used in t ...
and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
bombers began arriving at the field to be armed and prepared for immediate shipment overseas. In March 1942 Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle
James Harold Doolittle (December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993) was an American military general and aviation pioneer who received the Medal of Honor for his daring raid on Japan during World War II. He also made early coast-to-coast flights ...
's B-25s arrived at McClellan for arming in preparation for their famous Tokyo raid.
On January 3, 1944 a B-17 Flying Fortress slammed into the runway while trying to land, killing all but one of its crew and scattering wreckage over a 15-mile area.
The base was renamed McClellan Air Force Base in 1948 and its repair and overhaul mission continued throughout the Cold War as an installation of the Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC) and later the Air Force Materiel Command
Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) is a major command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force (USAF). AFMC was created on July 1, 1992, through the amalgamation of the former Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC) and the former Air Force Systems Com ...
(AFMC), with the overhaul facility being known as the Sacramento Air Logistics Center Sacramento Air Logistics Center is a former United States Air Force unit based at McClellan Air Force Base from 1935 until its closure as part of the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission.
History
Construction of the Pacific Air Depot began ...
.
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, McClellan functioned as the main depot for overhauling the Air Force's F-111
The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production variants of the F-111 had roles that included ground attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons ca ...
, FB-111 and EF-111 aircraft, as well as the Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II
The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since 1976, it is named for the Republ ...
aircraft. A small contingent of F-111D and F-111F aircraft of the 431st Test and Evaluation Squadron, 57th Fighter Weapons Wing, Nellis AFB, Nevada was also detached to McClellan.
Facilities and aircraft
McClellan Airfield has one concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
paved 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 ...
(16/34) measuring 10,600 x 150 ft. (3,231 x 46 m). It also has four concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
helipads, all measuring 57 x 57 ft. (17 x 17 m). For the 12-month period ending April 10, 2004, the airport had 10,000 aircraft operations, an average of 27 per day: 40% military, 40% 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) an ...
and 20% 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 ...
. There are 84 aircraft based at this airport: 4% single-engine, 64% multi-engine, 23% jet and 5% 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
5% military.[
The ]Aerospace Museum of California
The Aerospace Museum of California is a private non-profit aviation museum located in North Highlands, California, outside of Sacramento, California, on the grounds of the former McClellan Air Force Base. The museum has a 4.5-acre outdoor Air Park ...
occupies a site at the north of the airfield.
Coast Guard Air Station
The airport also functioned as a joint civil-military facility, providing a base for the United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...
and its Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento facility. Missions include search and rescue
Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...
(SAR
SAR or Sar may refer to:
Places
* Sar (river), Galicia, Spain
* Sar, Bahrain, a residential district
* Sar, Iran (disambiguation), several places in Iran
* Sar, Tibet, Tibet Autonomous Region of China
* Šar Mountains, in southeastern Europe
...
), law enforcement, aids to navigation support (such as operating lighthouses
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Lighthouses mark ...
) and various military operations. In addition, Coast Guard helicopters assigned to the air station deploy to Coast Guard cutters.
References
External links
![McClellanAAF-CA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/McClellanAAF-CA.jpg)
McClellan Park
McClellan Jet Services
FBO (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, ...
)
*
Aerospace Museum of California
{{US-airport-ga, MCC
Airports in Sacramento County, California