DeKalb-Peachtree Airport

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DeKalb-Peachtree Airport
IATA: PDK - ICAO: KPDK
Summary
Airport type Public
Operator DeKalb County
Serves Atlanta, Georgia
Elevation AMSL 1,003 ft (305.7 m)
Coordinates 33°52′32.2″N, 84°18′07.1″W
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
2R/20L 6,000 1,829 Concrete
2L/20R 3,746 1,142 Asphalt
16/34 3,967 1,209 Asphalt
9/27 3,383 1,031 Asphalt
Helipads
Number Size Surface
ft m
H1 56 17 Concrete

DeKalb-Peachtree Airport (IATA: PDK, ICAO: KPDK) is a municipal general aviation airport located in Chamblee, Georgia, just northeast of Atlanta. It is operated by the local government of DeKalb County, Georgia, and is also known commonly as Peachtree-DeKalb Airport, or simply PDK. Other names include Peachtree Airport, DeKalb Airport, or DeKalb County Airport. ASOS weather reports are produced 24 hours per day as "Chamblee".

In 1997, DeKalb Peachtree Airport was one of the largest tax contributors of DeKalb County, behind The Southern Company and Bellsouth. DeKalb Peachtree Airport receives no taxpayer dollars to function, and is the 2nd busiest in the State of Georgia serving as a "reliever" to the world's busiest airport, the nearby Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, located eight miles away.

As the City of Atlanta has grown, the previously outlying suburbs, such as the town of Chamblee, have experienced tremendous growths in population. Thus, the area surrounding DeKalb-Peachtree has seen a tremendous increase in property values of homes nearby as well as an increase in population density with younger, higher-income population (as opposed the the original, generally blue-collar inhabitants of the surrounding neighborhoods). Many of these new residents who have greater financial resources than the prior homeowners have become vociferous in their desire to curb the airport's activities. Residents claim that the noise level at the airport has been increasing, when in actuality, studies have proven it to be decreasing.

Additionally, PDK's proximity to both Hartsfield-Jackson and Dobbins Air Reserve Base puts PDK and the surrounding neighborhoods underneath the approach patterns of both airports.

Due to its location in a densely populated area, PDK has been subject to noise complaints by area residents, and noise abatement procedures were instituted, including a suggested curfew for takeoffs and landings and an extensive buyout of area houses. In 2004, area residents complained that airplanes over the suggested size limit were using the airport, though DeKalb County refused to make the airport's records public. DeKalb County had entered into an agreement with the FAA wherein the FAA would provide flight tracking information in exchange for keeping airplanes' identification numbers (N-numbers) private. In August 2005, a DeKalb County judge ordered DeKalb Peachtree Airport to disclose the disputed information.

An adjacent major land development called International Village is being planned, the name a reference to the high proportion of Hispanics and Asians living in the area along Buford Highway. This land was purchased by the FAA as part of a buyout due to the noise from PDK, and the homes previously there were torn down several years ago. The area is expected to become a mixed use of ethnic shopping, dining, and entertainment, and is being built by PDK Investments, LLC.

Contents

[edit] History

The airport originally began during early World War II as Naval Air Station Atlanta, now located in Marietta on the south side of Dobbins Air Reserve Base. The property was part of Camp Gordon, a World War I era training camp. Leased from the county by the U.S. Navy, it was converted from military to civilian use from 1957 to 1959. The former barracks located there during the war became classrooms in late 1948 for Southern Technical Institute, a new engineering technology school created by Georgia Tech for former soldiers. Like NAS Atlanta, that school moved around 1958 to land donated by Dobbins, and is now known as Southern Polytechnic State University.

[edit] Facilities

The airport still has 765 acres or 3.1km² of land, with over 100 hangars and several hundred aircraft based there. It is the second-busiest airport in Georgia behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the number of flight operations per year (around 250,000), and helps to relieve ATL of smaller-airplane traffic. It also has a helipad, used by helicopters for metro Atlanta's four major news TV stations (WSB-TV 2, WAGA-TV 5, WXIA-TV 11, WGCL-TV 46) as the base for electronic news gathering from the air. A control tower was built in 1988, and stands at 130 feet or 40 meters tall. The main runway (20L) is 6000 feet or 1829 meters long.

[edit] References

  • [1] History of PDK

[edit] External links

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