Capital City Airport is a public

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 ...

Fairview Township, York County, Pennsylvania Fairview Township is a township in York County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 17,436 at the 2020 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of , of which is land and , or 0 ...

, three miles (5 km) southeast of

Harrisburg Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in ...

, the capital of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. 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 and

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tarif ...

, but Capital City Airport is CXY to the FAA and HAR to the IATA (which assigned CXY to Cat Cays Airport,

Bimini Islands Bimini is the westernmost district of the Bahamas and comprises a chain of islands located about due east of Miami. Bimini is the closest point in the Bahamas to the mainland United States and approximately west-northwest of Nassau. The popula ...

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...

Overview

The airport is the home airport for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Aviation and the

Pennsylvania State Police The Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) is the state police agency of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, responsible for statewide law enforcement. The Pennsylvania State Police is a full service law enforcement agency which handles both traffic and c ...

. It averages more than 57,000 corporate, charter, and private aircraft operations a year. Owned and operated by the Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority (SARAA), Capital City Airport is the designated reliever and sister airport of

Harrisburg International Airport Harrisburg International Airport is a public airport in Middletown, Pennsylvania, nine miles (15 km) southeast of Harrisburg. It is owned by the Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority., effective September 16, 2022 The airport code ...

, and serves Dauphin, Cumberland, and York counties.
1954 airport diagram
A study by the PA Department of Transportation in 2000 concluded that Capital City Airport related activities generate nearly $24 million a year in economic output.

Facilities

Capital City Airport covers and has two asphalt runways: 8/26 is 5,001 x 150 ft (1,524 x 46 m) and 12/30 is 3,925 x 100 ft (1,196 x 30 m). In the year ending September 30, 2015 the airport had 27,348 aircraft operations, average 75 a day: 88%

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 ...

, 10% military, and 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) ...

. 85 aircraft are based at the airport: 81% single-engine, 13% multi-engine, 3%

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 attribu ...

and 2% jet.

History

Originally Capital Landing Field, the airport opened in mid-1930 and was Harrisburg's first airline airport. On October 25, 1930, a

Ford Trimotor The Ford Trimotor (also called the "Tri-Motor", and nicknamed the "Tin Goose") is an American three-engined transport aircraft. Production started in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and ended on June 7, 1933, after 199 had been made. It ...

airplane flying the first transcontinental

air mail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be th ...

stopped at the airport. In 1934 the

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

purchased it and renamed it Harrisburg-York State Airport. It was a stop on longer air routes, principally between

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

and

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

. The airline was Transcontinental and Western Airlines which became TWA and remained until 1968. (DC-9s replaced TWA's last Constellations in 1967; the 4970-ft runway was one of the shortest in the country to see airline jets.) Allegheny and Capital/United appeared in the 1940s; United pulled out in 1966. In the 1940s the airport handled war materials for the former adjacent New Cumberland Army Depot and hosted the

Naval Photographic Reconnaissance Training School A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

. The Army Air Corps stationed the 101st and 103d Observation Squadrons at Harrisburg early in the war to train pilots in observation and aerial photography. Later the Army Air Force formed the 6th Fighter Wing and 47th Bombardment Wing at the airport before their deployment overseas. New Cumberland Army depot remains although it has gone through several name changes over the years. It has been known as Defense Distribution Center (DDC) New Cumberland, Defense Distribution Region East (DDRE), and the Defense Distribution Supply Point (DDSP) Susquehanna. Currently it is known as the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Susquehanna, one of the largest military distribution centers for supplies and equipment for the

U.S. Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

Olmsted Air Force Base Harrisburg Air National Guard Base is a United States Air Force base, located at Harrisburg International Airport, Pennsylvania. It is located west-southwest of Middletown, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Air National Guard facility is sited ...

, just across the river in Middletown was also close, and in 1968 Allegheny and TWA moved there to newly named

. Capital City Airport then got its current name and became a general aviation airport. Since 1999 Capital City Airport has been owned and operated by the

Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority The Susquehanna Area Regional Airport Authority (SARAA) is the governing authority of Harrisburg International Airport, Capital City Airport, Franklin County Regional Airport and Gettysburg Regional Airport in south-central Pennsylvania. SARAA was ...

(SARAA). CXY is the designated reliever and sister airport of Harrisburg International Airport, and serves Dauphin, Cumberland, and York counties.

References

External links

Capital City AirportCapital City Airport
at Pennsylvania Bureau of Aviation *
Volo Aviation
Fixed-Base Operator
{{coord, 40.22032, -76.85468, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-PA, display=title Airports in Pennsylvania Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Pennsylvania Transportation buildings and structures in York County, Pennsylvania

Overview

Facilities

History

See also

References

External links