Laurinburg–Maxton 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 three miles (5 km) north 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 ...

of Maxton and east of

Laurinburg Laurinburg is a city in and the county seat of Scotland County, North Carolina, United States. Located in southern North Carolina near the South Carolina border, Laurinburg is southwest of Fayetteville and is home to St. Andrews University. Th ...

. Maxton is located primarily in

Robeson County Robeson County ( )Talk Like a Tarheel
, from the North Carolina C ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

USA The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

while

is in Scotland County,

as is the airport proper. This

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 ...

airport covers and has two

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, ...

s. It is home of the United States Army Parachute team Golden Knights. 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 program ...

for the FAA and

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...

, Laurinburg–Maxton Airport is assigned MEB by the FAA and MXE by the IATAGreat Circle Mapper: MXE/KMEB – Maxton, North Carolina (Laurinburg–Maxton Airport)
/ref> (which assigned MEB to

Essendon Airport Essendon Fields Airport , colloquially known by its former name Essendon Airport, is a public airport serving scheduled commercial, corporate-jet, charter and general aviation flights. It is located next to the intersection of the Tullamarin ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

). The airport's

ICAO The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sch ...

identifier is KMEB.AirNav: KMEB – Laurinburg–Maxton Airport
/ref> The airfield was constructed for the United States Army Air Force during World War II. During the war the airfield was a large training base for glider-towing aircraft. KMEB Northwest Aircraft Boneyard

Today the airfield is noted for being the home of Charlotte Aircraft, a company which parts-out and scraps older aircraft. Visitors to the airfield can see a number of 727s, DC-10s, 737s, and 747s in various stages of being dismantled and scrapped. In 2006 the forward fuselage of Northwest Airlines' first 747-100 was removed from the aircraft at Maxton by Guard-Lee for installation in the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...

on the

National Mall The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institu ...

in Washington DC. The remainder of the aircraft was scrapped and parted by Charlotte Aircraft at Laurinburg–Maxton Airport. This was replaced with N603US, which was the third Northwest Airlines 747-100. In 1994 the East Coast Timing Association (ECTA) began land speed racing at what became known as the "Maxton Mile". The ECTA was formed by two Bonneville racers, Tom Sarda and John Beckett, with the idea of providing its members with a place to run speed trials in the eastern half of the United States. It had a mostly concrete surface with greater traction than the slick salt of Bonneville, and it produced similar speeds to the SCTA sanctioned El Mirage. The longest runway at Maxton sat unused since the 1960s and was badly overgrown. Volunteers with the ECTA removed hundreds of truckloads of debris to reveal 1.6 miles of concrete. The ECTA held its first time trials at Maxton in 1994 and for 14 years constantly improved the runway, eventually repaving almost 40% of the mile. ECTA lost their lease on the property in 2010 after 14 years. The airport authority had leased half of the runway to the Gryphon Group, a para-military anti-terrorist training center. The two groups could not co-exist at the airport, although the ECTA only held 5 weekend events a year.

References

External links

* at

North Carolina DOT The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) is responsible for building, repairing, and operating highways, bridges, and other modes of transportation, including ferries in the U.S. state of North Carolina. History The North Carolina ...

airport guide * 1943 establishments in North Carolina Airports established in 1943 Airports in North Carolina Transportation in Scotland County, North Carolina Buildings and structures in Scotland County, North Carolina {{NorthCarolina-airport-stub

See also

References

External links