Wendover Airport is a county-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 ...

located one nautical mile (2 km) southeast of the central business district of

Wendover Wendover is a market town and civil parish at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated at the point where the main road across the Chilterns between London and Aylesbury intersects with the once important road a ...

, city on the western edge of Tooele County,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, United States.

Description

The airport is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a ''primary commercial service'' airport. As per

Federal Aviation Administration 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 ...

records, the airport had 46,264 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 50,360 enplanements in 2009, and 50,734 in 2010.

History

Military

The Wendover Airport is located at the site of the former

Wendover Air Force Base Wendover Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base in Utah now known as Wendover Airport. During World War II, it was a training base for B-17 and B-24 bomber crews. It was the training site of the 509th Composite Group, the B ...

, which ceased most military operations in the mid-1960s.

Civilian

Wendover AAF was declared surplus in 1976 and on June 16 most of the field, including the water system, was turned over to Wendover, Utah, as a municipal airport. Beginning in 1980, the 4440th Tactical Fighter Training Group (Red Flag) at

Nellis AFB Nellis Air Force Base ("Nellis" colloq.) is a United States Air Force installation in southern Nevada. Nellis hosts air combat exercises such as Exercise Red Flag and close air support exercises such as Green Flag-West flown in " Military Op ...

, Nevada, used the field for exercises, but they were discontinued after 1986. In the late 1990s the airport's ownership was transferred from the city of Wendover to Tooele County. Still-extant facilities include three paved runways, numerous ramps, taxiways, dispersal pads, all of the original hangars (including the "Enola Gay" B-29 hangar), and 75 other World War II–era buildings. Several flying scenes for the 1997 movie ''

Con Air ''Con Air'' is a 1997 American action thriller film directed by Simon West and starring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack and John Malkovich. Written by Scott Rosenberg and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the film centers on a prison break aboard a ...

'' were filmed at Wendover, using a

Fairchild C-123K Provider The Fairchild C-123 Provider is an American military transport aircraft designed by Chase Aircraft and then built by Fairchild Aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. In addition to its USAF service, which included later service with the Air Force Re ...

. A non-profit group, Historic Wendover Airfield, is attempting to restore the historic elements of the field.

Facilities and aircraft

Wendover Airport covers an area of 1,960 acres (793 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 § Ver ...

of 4,237 feet (1,291 m) 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

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 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: 8/26 is 10,002 by 150 feet (3,048.61 x 46 m) and 12/30 is 8,002 by 100 feet (2,439 x 30 m). For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2011, the airport had 5,009 aircraft operations, an average of 13 per day: 73%

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 ...

, 15% scheduled commercial, and 12%

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 7 aircraft based at this airport: 57% jet and 43% 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 ...

. The airport is an

uncontrolled airport In aviation, a non-towered airport is an airport without a control tower, or air traffic control (ATC) unit. The vast majority of the world's airports are non-towered. In the United States, there are close to 20,000 non-towered airports compared ...

that has no control tower.

Airlines and destinations

As of February 2022, there are no scheduled airline service to Wendover. However,

Swift Air iAero Airways, previously Swift Air, is an American airline based in Miami, Florida, United States. It operates charter flights for nationally known fractional aircraft operators, financial institutions, construction, transportation, many colle ...

offers charter flights to various cities across the United States and Canada from Wendover using

Boeing 737-800 The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a narrow-body aircraft powered by two jet engines and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third generation derivative of the Boein ...

and

Boeing 737-400 The Boeing 737 Classic is a series of narrow-body airliners produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the second generation of the Boeing 737 series of aircraft. Development began in 1979 and the first variant, the 737-300, first flew in Februa ...

aircraft, as part of a package deal to bring tourists to local casinos. On average, the airport sees one charter flight per day.

References

External links

Historic Wendover Airfield

Aerial image as of September 1993
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 ...

'' * * * {{authority control Airports in Utah Buildings and structures in Tooele County, Utah Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah Airports on the National Register of Historic Places Transportation in Tooele County, Utah National Register of Historic Places in Tooele County, Utah