North Palm Beach County Airport , also known as North County Airport, is an uncontrolled (non-towered)

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 ...

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 northwest of

West Palm Beach West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

off the Bee Line Highway in

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida Palm Beach Gardens is a city in Palm Beach County in the U.S. state of Florida, 77 miles north of downtown Miami. , the population was 59,182. Palm Beach Gardens is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6 ...

. The airport is owned by

Palm Beach County Palm Beach County is a county located in the southeastern part of Florida and lies directly north of Broward County and Miami-Dade County. The county had a population of 1,492,191 as of the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous county ...

and operated by the Palm Beach County Airports Department. The field is in proximity to, and shares services with, William P. Gwinn Airport (more commonly referred to as Gwinn Airfield) which is owned by

United Technologies Corporation United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous areas, including aircraft engines, aerospace systems ...

(UTC). It was previously operated by its Pratt & Whitney jet engine business unit and is currently operated by its Sikorsky Aircraft business unit. Due to its proximity to the Sikorsky test grounds, North County is often used to test ILS approaches on

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

or prototype

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 ...

s such as the RAH-66 Comanche,

SH-60 Seahawk The Sikorsky SH-60/MH-60 Seahawk (or Sea Hawk) is a twin turboshaft engine, multi-mission United States Navy helicopter based on the United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk and a member of the Sikorsky S-70 family. The most significant modificatio ...

and the S-92.

DayJet DayJet was an American commercial aviation operation that provided on-demand jet travel using Eclipse 500 very light jets. Founded by Ed Iacobucci, the former leader of the IBM-Microsoft Joint OS/2 development team IBM executive and the foun ...

previously provided an on-demand jet

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) ...

service from this

to Jacksonville, Lakeland, Tallahassee, Pensacola, Gainesville, Boca Raton, Opa-Locka/Miami Dade County, Naples, Sarasota/Bradenton, Savannah, Macon, and Montgomery until its liquidation in bankruptcy in 2008.

Facilities and aircraft

North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport covers an area of 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 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 one

turf Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls. In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricult ...

runway designated 9L/27R which measures and 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 runways: 9R/27L measuring and 14/32 measuring . For the 12-month period ending June 20, 2002, the airport had 35,532 aircraft operations, an average of 97 per day, all of which were

. At that time there were 215 aircraft based at this airport: 60% 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 ...

, 31% multi-engine, 3% jet, 4%

glider Glider may refer to: Aircraft and transport Aircraft * Glider (aircraft), heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight ** Glider (sailplane), a rigid-winged glider aircraft with an undercarriage, used in the sport of glidin ...

and 2%

. The airport is home to many Cirrus aircraft, along with Piper cubs, Commanders, Cessna 150/152/162/172/180/182/206, Piper Cherokee, Piper Arrow, Beechcraft Bonanza, Beechcraft Baron, Pilatus PC-12, numerous Cessna Citations and many more. There are two active helicopter landing pads. The airport has one

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, ...

, Signature Flight Support, located in the middle of the apron. North County is home to Ocean Helicopters and Cloud 9 Helicopters Both maintain a fleet of Robinson helicopters and both are FAA Certified Part 141 Flight Schools. Aamro Aviation is the only fixed wing school which conducts Part 61 and FAA Certified Part 141 flight training and aircraft rentals in Cessna 172's.https://www.aamroaviation.com/

References

External links

* {{Florida airports Airports in Palm Beach County, Florida