Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport (formerly known as Silver Comet Field, and Paulding County Regional Airport) is a small public-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 surface ...

Paulding County, Georgia Paulding County is a county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. Part of the Atlanta metropolitan area, it had an estimated population of 168,661 in 2020. The county seat is Dallas. History Paulding County was created ...

, United States. The airport is located in the city of Dallas, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta. It is owned by the Paulding County Board of Commissioners, and is included in the

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. NPIAS was developed and now maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It identifies existing and proposed airports tha ...

for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a

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 ...

facility. Although many U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

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 tariff ...

, this facility is assigned PUJ by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA (which assigned PUJ to

Punta Cana International Airport Punta Cana International Airport is a privately owned commercial airport in Punta Cana, eastern Dominican Republic. The airport was built with open-air terminals and roofs covered in palm fronds. Grupo Punta Cana built the airport, which was de ...

in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

History

In 1975, in anticipation of a second

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...

, the city of

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

purchased of land in Paulding for $925 per acre. In early 2007, the county purchased of the property for the new

airport. Paulding County is unserved by either

rapid transit Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be c ...

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

s. The airport's location is on the

Rockmart Rockmart is a town in Polk County, Georgia, United States. Its population was 4,732 at the 2020 census. It developed as a railroad depot town when the Southern Railway built a station in the area. The community was incorporated in 1872, and ...

Highway (

U.S. Route 278 U.S. Route 278 (US 278) is a parallel route of US 78. It currently runs for from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, to Wickes, Arkansas at US 71/ US 59, passing through five states in the process. Landmarks along its route includ ...

), approximately from the nearest interstate and from Midtown Atlanta.

Construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

was completed in late 2008. It is the ninth local airport in

metro Atlanta Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Alpharetta, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the ...

, and the first new

jet Jet, Jets, or The Jet(s) may refer to: Aerospace * Jet aircraft, an aircraft propelled by jet engines ** Jet airliner ** Jet engine ** Jet fuel * Jet Airways, an Indian airline * Wind Jet (ICAO: JET), an Italian airline * Journey to Enceladus a ...

-capable

in Georgia since 1975. To date, more than $70 million has gone into the construction and development of the airport: roughly $10 million from Paulding County directly, $55 million in Federal Aviation Administration grants, and $7 million in state funding. It is anticipated that economic development activity at the airport could result in more than $350 million in annual economic activity and thousands of jobs for Paulding County over the next decade.

2012 hangar collapse

On February 22, 2012, one worker was killed and another was injured by the collapse of the second hangar during construction work. Construction of this hangar had been previously delayed in December 2011, when it was discovered that the hangar's concrete slab was not level.

2012 tornado

On the night of March 2, 2012, during the tornado outbreak of March 2–3, 2012, the airport was struck by an EF3

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

that tore a path across the county. Several million dollars in damage was done, including $1.5 million to the facility, and $5 million to the aircraft parked and stored there, most of which were destroyed (between 18 and 23 aircraft). The hangar was so severely damaged, it had to be torn down and rebuilt. The airport was closed until cleanup and essential repairs were completed. Repairs to the terminal building were completed in October 2012. The airport became operational with aircraft activity near levels documented prior to the March 2012 tornado, though the airport's only charter service ceased operations. .

Attempted privatization

On October 4, 2013, Paulding County announced a Public Private Partnership with Propeller Investments, llc (doing business as Silver Comet Terminal Partners, llc) to further develop the airport, with an intent to provide commercial passenger services. This was opposed by local residents, to whom the head of the Paulding County Airport Authority had previously promised that the airport would remain a general aviation airport. Consequently, residents filed several lawsuits addressing violations of Georgia's

freedom of information laws Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments and, where applicable, by state and local governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatisfa ...

, and an ultra vires suit against the Paulding County Industrial Building Authority for overextending its authority. Some of these lawsuits were filed by attorneys associated with

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the List of airlines by foundation date, world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atla ...

. In October 2013, residents filed a legal challenge against bond funding for a taxiway expansion, and a second legal challenge in November, questioning the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) environmental approvals of the planned expansions. In December, the court ruled in favor of the airport and county in the bond funding case; residents pledged to appeal. A settlement was announced for the FAA case, calling for an environmental assessment, postponing the commercialization of the airport. In January 2014, residents filed a third legal challenge regarding airport leases and a loan funding the taxiway expansion. By 2015, anti-privatization politicians had been elected to the Paulding County Commission, straining the private industry relations, and by 2018, the Airport Authority terminated the partnership. In 2021, a judge upheld the county's cancellation of the agreements and the companies appealed.

Facilities

Paulding Northwest Atlanta 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 § Vert ...

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. It has one southeast–northwest

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, as ...

designated 13/31 which measures . Made of

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 wi ...

, it is capable of landing

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

up to for single-wheel

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

, and for dual-wheel. A new, terminal building was opened in May 2010, along with the airport's new

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, ...

, Paulding Jet Center. The airport also has an AWOS

weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...

, a rotating beacon, and

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

-activated runway lighting. The runway

averages

AMSL Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

, ±3 feet (±1m). PUJ offers an ILS and

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

approach on runway 31. The

National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...

did not carry observations for this location until late 2012 or early 2013. On October 1, 2020, the Paulding Airport FBO (

) took the place of the former Paulding Jet Center FBO. This new FBO is under the direction of the Paulding County Airport Authority.

References

External links

PauldingAirport.com
* {{Atlanta airports Airports in Georgia (U.S. state) Buildings and structures in Paulding County, Georgia Transportation in Paulding County, Georgia Airports established in 2008 2008 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)