Double Eagle II Airport is a public airport located northwest of the central business district of

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding i ...

, a city in

Bernalillo County Bernalillo County () is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Mexico.Bernalillo ...

, New Mexico, United States. It is owned by the City of Albuquerque. Located on the far west side of the city, it is Albuquerque's second airport after

Albuquerque International Sunport Albuquerque International Sunport is the primary international airport serving the U.S. state of New Mexico, the Albuquerque metropolitan area, and the larger Albuquerque– Santa Fe– Las Vegas combined statistical area. It handles around ...

. Construction began in 1982, and the airport was named for the '' Double Eagle II'' balloon, the first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean, piloted by

Ben Abruzzo Benjamin L. "Ben" Abruzzo (June 9, 1930 – February 11, 1985) was an American balloonist and businessman who helped make Albuquerque, New Mexico, into an international ballooning center. He was part of the balloon crews that made the first A ...

, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman. Although 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 ...

, Double Eagle II is assigned AEG by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA (which assigned AEG to Aek Godang Airport in Padang Sidempuan,

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

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 ...

, air ambulance, corporate flights, military flights, training flights, charter, and private make up approximately 80,000 annual operations. Utilicraft Aerospace Industries announced in 2005 that it had secured a major investment from the

Navajo Nation The Navajo Nation ( nv, Naabeehó Bináhásdzo), also known as Navajoland, is a Native Americans in the United States, Native American Indian reservation, reservation in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwe ...

to build Utilicraft FF-1080 cargo aircraft at Double Eagle II. The deal later fell apart and no planes were built, though the company continued to seek other funding.

Facilities and aircraft

Double Eagle II Airport covers an area of which contains two

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 ...

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 ...

s: * Runway 04/22 – ; full ILS &

MALSR An approach lighting system (ALS) is a lighting system installed on the approach end of an airport runway and consisting of a series of lightbars, strobe lights, or a combination of the two that extends outward from the runway end. ALS usually ...

(22 end); PAPI visual navigational aide * Runway 17/35 – . REIL (each end); PAPI visual navigational aide Traffic pattern altitude is 6,800' mean sea level. Right hand traffic patterns for runways 22 and 35. For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2018, the airport had 78,860 aircraft operations, an average of 216 per day: 97%

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%

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) ...

and 2% military. There was 136 aircraft based at this airport: 107 single-engine, 14 multi-engine, 9

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 ...

, 4

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 ...

and 2 jet. The data below lists annual total aircraft operations from 2009 to 2013 from the FAA's Air Traffic Activity System. The percent changes indicate an average of −3.61% in aircraft operations per year over the last 5 years.

Filming location

Scenes for the pilot episode of the television series '' Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles'' were filmed on location at Double Eagle II Airport. For the filming, the airport's sign was partially covered with a new sign stating the fictional name, "Red Valley Regional Airport", but the lower portion of the sign stating the actual latitude, longitude, and elevation of the airport was left uncovered. The ''

Better Call Saul ''Better Call Saul'' is an American crime and legal drama television series created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. Part of the ''Breaking Bad'' franchise, it is a spin-off of Gilligan's previous series, ''Breaking Bad'', and serves as a ...

'' episode "Fifi" was filmed here while it hosted one of two still operating

B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 ...

bombers, named FIFI.

References

External links

Double Eagle II Airport
at Albuquerque International Sunport {{Albuquerque, New Mexico Airports in New Mexico Transportation in Albuquerque, New Mexico Buildings and structures in Albuquerque, New Mexico 1980s establishments in New Mexico