Sky Harbor Airport & Seaplane Base or Sky Harbor 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 ...

Duluth , settlement_type = City , nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City , motto = , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It is located near the

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

border, between Superior Bay and

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

. The airport is six nautical miles (11 km) southeast of the central business district of

Duluth, Minnesota , settlement_type = City , nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City , motto = , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...

, on

Minnesota Point Minnesota Point, also known as the Park Point neighborhood of Duluth, Minnesota, United States; is a long, narrow sand spit that extends out from the Canal Park tourist recreation-oriented district of the city of Duluth. The Point separates La ...

within its city limits. The airport is owned by the Duluth Airport Authority and has been operating for over 50 years. It is one of only four airports in Minnesota offering both a hard surface runway for airplanes and water landing areas for seaplanes. 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 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, Sky Harbor Airport is assigned DYT by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA.

Facilities and aircraft

Sky Harbor Airport covers an area of which contains one

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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, concre ...

designated 14/32 which measures 2,600 by 75 feet (793 x 23 m). It also has two

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

landing areas: 9W/27W is 5,000 by 1,500 feet (1,524 x 457 m) and 13W/31W is 10,000 by 2,000 feet (3,048 x 610 m). Protecting old-growth pine trees on the south east end of the runway prompted a $13.2 million project which realigned the runway by 5 degrees and changed the runway length to 2600 feet with no displaced thresholds. The airport reopened with its newly resurfaced runway on June 12, 2020. The runway realignment created seven acres of new land for the southeast end of the runway along the edge of Park Point, in order to angle the runway into the bay rather than toward the forest. The old Runway 32 had a displaced threshold 658 ft past the beginning of the hard surface, leaving 2,392 ft for landing. For the 12-month period ending April 30, 2018, the airport had 13,900 aircraft operations, an average of 38 per day: 94%

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 ...

and 6%

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) ...

. In 2018, there were 24 aircraft based at this airport: 21 single-engine and 3 multi-engine.

History

Sky Harbor Airport was founded in 1946 by Jack Brockway and William Neukom.

References

External links

Aerial image as of June 1997
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the effort is to pro ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Sky Harbor Airport and Seaplane Base Airports in Minnesota Seaplane bases in the United States Buildings and structures in Duluth, Minnesota Transportation in Duluth, Minnesota Airports established in 1946 1946 establishments in Minnesota