Canton–Plymouth Mettetal Airport is a public use

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

located in Canton Township,

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, United States. The airport lies two nautical miles (3.7 km) south of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

, in Wayne County.Canton township, Wayne county, Michigan
"

U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

. Retrieved on October 28, 2009. The airport is owned and operated by the

Michigan Department of Transportation The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is a constitutional government principal department of the US state of Michigan. The primary purpose of MDOT is to maintain the Michigan State Trunkline Highway System which includes all Interst ...

(MDOT). It is also referred to as Mettetal Airport. The airport is uncontrolled (non-towered) and is used for

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

purposes. It is included in the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

(FAA)

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. With the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of September 3, 1982, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was required to develop a ...

for 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a local reliever airport facility. In 2017, the airport was home to a prototype flying cars produced by Detroit Flying Cars. The company's goal was to produce an aircraft that both drove like a standards car and flew like a standard aircraft. The project has been exhibited at shows such as the EAA AirVenture Airshow in

Oshkosh, Wisconsin Oshkosh () is a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the western shore of Lake Winnebago and had a population of 66,816 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List o ...

History

The airport was founded in the 1930s as a grass strip to support

crop dusting Aerial application, or crop dusting, involves spraying crops with crop protection products from an agricultural aircraft. Planting certain types of seed are also included in aerial application. The specific spreading of fertilizer is also known a ...

for nearby farmers. It was established as a public-use airport in 1939.

Facilities and aircraft

Canton–Plymouth Mettetal Airport covers an area of at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''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 equipotenti ...

of 696 feet (212 m) above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

. It has one

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

designated 18/36 with an asphalt surface measuring 2,303 by 75 feet (702 x 23 m). No commercial airline service is available, although many small flight schools are based there. Due to the short runway length, touch and go operations, commonly used in flight training, are prohibited. For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2020, the airport had 13,870

aircraft operations, an average of 38 per day. For the same time period, there were 78 aircraft based at the field: 72 single-engine and 3 multi-engine

airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...

s as well as 3

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s. In late 2015, the airport was damaged by a sudden, unforecasted

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of 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, although the ...

. The airport has several hangars for aircraft storage. In early 2022, a new helicopter-focused hangar opened that doubled available hangar space. The airport has a

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 ...

, which offers

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...

as well as aircraft parking.

Accidents and incidents

*On April 18, 1998, a

Cessna 150 The Cessna 150 is a two-seat tricycle gear general aviation airplane that was designed for flight training, touring and personal use.Plane and Pilot: ''1978 Aircraft Directory'', pages 22-23. Werner & Werner Corp, Santa Monica CA, 1977. In 19 ...

crashed just south of the airport during a training flight. The aircraft had just departed Canton–Plymouth Mettetal Airport en route to

Willow Run Willow Run, also known as Air Force Plant 31, was a manufacturing complex in Michigan, United States, located between Ypsilanti Township and Belleville, built by the Ford Motor Company to manufacture aircraft, especially the Consolidated B-24 ...

when the engine lost power, and the aircraft executed a forced landing in a nearby field. *On October 20, 2002, a

Piper PA-32 Cherokee Six The Piper PA-32 Cherokee Six is a series of single-engine, fixed landing gear, light aircraft manufactured in the United States by Piper Aircraft between 1965 and 2007.Plane and Pilot: ''1978 Aircraft Directory'', page 63. Werner & Werner Cor ...

crashed while landing at Canton. The aircraft went off the side of the runway and struck the

VASI The visual approach slope indicator (VASI) is a system of lights on the side of an airport runway threshold that provides visual descent guidance information during final approach. These lights may be visible from up to during the day and up t ...

lighting system, after which the aircraft caught fire. The probable cause was found to be the pilot's failure to maintain directional control of the aircraft as well as inoperative right main landing gear brake. Contributing factors include a failed brake master cylinder seal, an inadequate preflight inspection by the pilot, a fuel fire, and the pilot's decision to operate the aircraft with a known brake problem. *On October 14, 2019, a Vans RV-4 crashed during landing at Canton-Plymouth.

References

External links

* at Michigan Airport Directory
Aerial photo as of 27 March 1999
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a Collaboration, 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 eff ...

'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Canton-Plymouth Mettetal Airport Airports in Wayne County, Michigan Canton, Michigan

History

Facilities and aircraft

Accidents and incidents

See also

References

External links