Winter Haven's Gilbert Airport is a city-owned, 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 nautical miles (6 km) northwest 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 Winter Haven, a city in Polk County,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

United States 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 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It is owned by the City of Winter Haven. It is also known as Winter Haven Regional Airport or Gilbert Field. Jack Browns Seaplane Base is located adjacent to the airport, connected by a

taxiway A taxiway is a path for aircraft at an airport connecting runways with Airport apron, aprons, hangars, Airport terminal, terminals and other facilities. They mostly have a hard surface such as Asphalt concrete, asphalt or concrete, although sma ...

. No major airlines fly here, with the closest major airport being Orlando International Airport about .

History

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, with the former turf runways paved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gilbert Field became an auxiliary airfield for the Lakeland (later Lodwick) School of Aeronautics at the Lakeland Lodwick Field airport. The school provided contracted basic pilot training to

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

and British

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

flying cadets from the airfield. Military flight training was performed at Gilbert Field until the end of the war when the Army Air Forces inactivated the installation and returned the airfield to the City of Winter Haven for use as a civilian airport. In 1950, concurrent with the reactivation of Bartow Air Base as a U.S. Air Force primary pilot training base, the Air Force negotiated a lease with the City of Winter Haven to use Gilbert Field under a joint civil-military arrangement as an auxiliary airfield to Bartow AB. USAF operations ceased in 1960 prior to Bartow AB's closure and transition to a civilian airport now known as Bartow Executive Airport.

Facilities and aircraft

Winter Haven's Gilbert 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 145 feet (44 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 two

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

paved

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: 5/23 is 5,005 by 100 feet (1,526 x 30 m) and 11/29 is 4,001 by 60 feet (1,220 x 18.29 m). For the 12-month period ending July 24, 2018, the airport had 77,998

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 ...

aircraft operations, an average of 214 per day. At that time there were 150 aircraft based at this airport: 138 single-

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...

, 10 multi-engine, 2 helicopters, and 1 glider.

Accidents and Incidents

Four people were killed on March 7, 2023, when a Piper PA-28 Cherokee and a float-equipped

Piper J-3 Cub The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1938 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low-speed handling properties and short-field performance. The Cub is Pi ...

collided on approach to runway 29 at Gilbert Field.

References

External links

Winter Haven Air Services
, the

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 ...

(FBO)
Aerial photo as of 6 January 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 ...

'' * {{Florida airports 1943 establishments in Florida Airports established in 1943 USAAF Contract Flying School Airfields Airports in Polk County, Florida Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Florida Buildings and structures in Winter Haven, Florida

History

Facilities and aircraft

Accidents and Incidents

See also

References

External links