, nativename-a = , nativename-r = , image = Rand Airport Control Tower landside.JPG , image-width = 220 , caption = Rand Airport Control Tower from landside , IATA = QRA , ICAO = FAGM , type = Public , owner = , operator = Rand Airport Management Company (Pty) Ltd. , city-served =

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

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Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a small city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions a ...

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

, elevation-f = 5,482 , elevation-m = 1,671 , coordinates = , website = http://www.randairport.co.za , pushpin_map = Greater Johannesburg , pushpin_label = QRA , pushpin_map_caption = Location in the Johannesburg area , metric-elev = 1600 , metric-rwy = , r1-number = 11/29 , r1-length-f = , r1-length-m = , r1-surface =

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 ...

, r2-number = 17/35 , r2-length-f = , r2-length-m = , r2-surface =

, stat-year = , stat1-header = , stat1-data = , stat2-header = , stat2-data = , footnotes = Rand Airport is an airport in

, South Africa. It was constructed in the 1920s as the main airport for

, but the city outgrew it and replaced the airport with

Palmietfontein Airport Palmietfontein Airport ( af, Palmietfontein Lughawe) was an airport situated to the south of Johannesburg (Katlehong), South Africa, from 1945 to 1952. Latitude: -26° 20' 7.20" S Longitude: 28° 08' 28.80" E History Palmietfontein Airport ...

in 1948 (itself replaced by Jan Smuts International Airport in 1952).

History

Before World War II

In 1917, Major Allister Miller landed on Germiston Golf Course and thought the area close by would be suitable as an airfield due to its location near to Johannesburg, the landmark of Victoria Lake and the well-drained land. But it would take until February 1929, for the three interested parties to agree for of land to be set aside for what was called the Germiston Public Aerodrome. The three parties were the Germiston Town Council, Elandsfontein Estate Company and the

Rand Refinery Rand Refinery (Pty) Limited is the largest integrated single-site precious metals refining and smelting complex in the world. It was established in 1920 to refine gold within South Africa which until that time had been refined in London. History ...

. Later that year, the Germiston Town Council gained full control and further plans were developed for the aerodrome when

Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passengers ...

was thinking of adding

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

to their flight schedules. After the involvement of the South African government, they were able to convince the airline that Johannesburg, with its mining and industry, should be their base rather than Cape Town, with Rand Refinery seeking to export its refined gold by air. Imperial Airways received a £400,000 () subsidy from both the South African and UK governments over five years. In November 1929, the Germiston Town Council bought a further of land for £14,000, after permission was given by the Mining Commissioner, as the land was owned by the Simmer and Jack mine with the understanding that the land could be reacquired as a mining area. In order to proceed with the development, the Johannesburg and Germiston Town Councils formed a joint committee on 14 November 1930 and £85,000 () was set aside for infrastructure. This would consist of a large and small hangar, administrative buildings, a workshop, floodlights and cottages. The airport was officially opened on 21 December 1931 by the Governor-General

Earl of Clarendon Earl of Clarendon is a title that has been created twice in British history, in 1661 and 1776. The family seat is Holywell House, near Swanmore, Hampshire. First creation of the title The title was created for the first time in the Peera ...

and owned jointly by the Germiston and Johannesburg Town Councils. In 1932, Captain Roy Makepeace became its manager. It became the headquarters of South African Airways (SAA) when the airline's head office was moved from

Durban Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

to Rand Airport on 1 July 1935. By 1938, the development costs had reached £200,000 () and losses of £20,000 (), a cost the Germiston Town Council could no longer afford and so sold its share to the Johannesburg City Council for £106,498, with of land not used resold to the former and land provided for a future highway to connect to the Heidelberg road. The final transfer took place in 1944. In early 1939, the Union Defence Force took control of Rand Airport and by May 1940, all commercial flights ended. The training schools based there trained pilots for the war effort and the facilities were extended with fifteen additional hangars built. By 1944, a limited number of internal commercial flights resumed from the airport.

After World War II

SAA moved its headquarters to

in 1948 because of runway length constraints. Nevertheless, Rand Airport grew quickly after World War II ended because of the influx of former air force pilots. In 1975, with 133 135 recorded aircraft movements, Rand Airport was the busiest airport in the southern hemisphere. The ownership of the airport originally consisted of 23 private shareholders and there has been very little change. Most of the re-sales have been taken up by existing owners under new company names so there has been a small increase to the current 25 owners, plus the Mayondi BEE consortium and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Council. Rand Airport from the observation deck

Rand Airport today

Today, the airport hosts air charter operators, flying schools and a number of aircraft maintenance organisations, as well other aviation-related enterprises. Charter operator

Phoebus Apollo Aviation Phoebus Apollo Aviation is a passenger, charter and cargo carrier and a flightschool based out of Johannesburg, Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a small city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administrative ...

has its headquarters at Rand; the airport is also home to the

Flying Lions Aerobatic Team The Flying Lions Aerobatic Team is a South African formation aerobatic team. They fly a four-ship aerobatic display using North American Harvard aircraft. The team operates five aircraft but only uses four in their display, leaving the fifth t ...

. South African Airways donated a

Boeing 747-200 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, t ...

and a

Boeing 747SP The Boeing 747SP (for ''Special Performance'') is a shortened version of the Boeing 747 wide-body airliner, designed for a longer range. Boeing needed a smaller aircraft to compete with the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and Lockheed L-1011 TriStar ...

to the South African Airways Museum Society which are on display at the airport. The museum also owns a

Boeing 737-200 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...

, two

DC-4 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1960s. ...

s, a

DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

, Vickers Viking, Lockheed Lodestar, Lockheed L1649 Starliner, DH Dove and numerous other exhibits. The airport also hosts an annual air show.

Airlines and destinations

Today, all scheduled flights operate at the nearby O. R. Tambo International Airport.

Hot and high conditions

Rand Airport is notorious for its

hot and high In aviation, hot and high is a condition of low air density due to high ambient temperature and high airport elevation. Air density decreases with increasing temperature and altitude. The lower air density reduces the power output from the airc ...

conditions and relatively short runways. Situated at an altitude of above sea level, the

density altitude The density altitude is the altitude relative to standard atmospheric conditions at which the air density would be equal to the indicated air density at the place of observation. In other words, the density altitude is the air density given as a ...

is as high as when the

outside air temperature In aviation terminology, the outside air temperature (OAT) or static air temperature (SAT) refers to the temperature of the air around an aircraft, but unaffected by the passage of the aircraft through it.http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_G ...

(OAT) is 30 °C. Special consideration must be given to flight planning in the summer when the ambient temperature is that high; there have been many accidents at this airfield as a result of reduced aircraft performance under these extreme conditions. A compounding factor is the lack of

forced landing A forced landing is a landing by an aircraft made under factors outside the pilot's control, such as the failure of engines, systems, components, or weather which makes continued flight impossible. For a full description of these, see article on ' ...

fields or areas, as the airport is surrounded by urban sprawl.

Notable accidents and incidents

* On 6 October 1970, at about 7:10 am, Douglas DC-3 registration ZS-DKR en route for Orapa, Botswana crashed as it attempted to return to Rand Airport after the left engine failed just after take-off. There were two crew and ten passengers aboard. The Captain and two passengers subsequently died of injuries. The aircraft was completely burnt-out after impact. * On 2 August 1995, an Antonov An-2 on a cargo flight from Rand airport to

Jamba, Angola Jamba is a town in Angola, located in the southeastern province of Cuando Cubango, just north of the Namibian border along the Caprivi Strip. The town is best known as the former military headquarters of UNITA, a rebel movement supported by ...

, crashed shortly after takeoff killing all three persons on board. The accident was attributed to the cargo which was not properly secured and shifted during the initial climb out, rendering the aircraft uncontrollable. * On 6 December 1999, a Piper PA-31-350 ZS-OJY crashed shortly after takeoff after suffering an engine failure. All ten people on board were killed. * On 30 August 2022, a SAPS PC-6 Turbo Porter crashed after takeoff. Reports indicate that five people on board were killed, with one of the pilots in critical condition.

References

External links

*
South African Airways Museum Society
{{authority control 1931 establishments in South Africa Airports in Johannesburg Buildings and structures in Germiston Economy of Germiston Transport in Germiston