Buckingham Field is a private-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 seven nautical miles (13 km) east of the central business district of

Fort Myers Fort Myers (or Ft. Myers) is a city in southwestern Florida and the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 92,245 in 20 ...

, in Lee County,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

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 territori ...

. It is privately owned by the Lee County Mosquito Control District. The Buckingham Air Park has deeded access to the airport.

Facilities

Buckingham Field has two

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 wid ...

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, concre ...

s: 14/32 measuring 4,046 x 400 ft (1,233 x 122 m) and 6/24 measuring 2,726 x 400 ft (831 x 122 m).

History

Originally constructed for the

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

as Buckingham Field, the airfield had its origins as an aircraft gunner training base to train the aerial gunners who would defend bombers. The airfield was constructed starting in 1942 at a cost of $10 million on a total of of swamp land, which had to be drained with an extensive system of newly constructed canals. The airfield originally had three 5,000-foot runways, with two oval tracks of the Ground Moving Target Range, located to the west of the airfield, as well as nearby skeet ranges and trap ranges. After the war, the barracks at Buckingham were briefly used as the Edison College, but this closed in 1948. Most of the buildings of the original base were subsequently removed over time. A street grid for a planned housing development named

Lehigh Acres Lehigh Acres is an unincorporated area and Municipal District in Lee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 Census the population was 135,272. Lehigh Acres is part of the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Leh ...

was eventually built over the area formerly occupied by Buckingham's runways in the 1950s. By the mid-1970s, the runways were gone except for the concrete ends. The 1978 Miami Sectional Chart depicted three paved portions of Buckingham's former ramp as the runways of the Lehigh Acres West private airfield. The longest runway was depicted as 3,000'. The street grid built over the location of the former runways remained undeveloped for some period of time, before eventually being partially filled in with houses, it remains, however, about 90% unoccupied. By 2000, the northern portion of the ramp was used as a runway, being operated as a private field, Buckingham Field Airport, by the Lee County Mosquito/Hyacinth Control District, which operates a fleet of 23 aircraft and helicopters (including C-47s and several rare C-117 Super Dakotas). Portions of the ramp area are also used for automobile racing.

References

External links

* {{Florida airports 1942 establishments in Florida Airports in Florida Transportation buildings and structures in Lee County, Florida Airports established in 1942