Douglas Municipal Airport (Arizona)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other airports with this name, see Douglas Municipal Airport.

Coordinates: 31°20′33″N 109°30′23″W / 31.3425, -109.50639

Douglas Municipal Airport
8 October 1996
IATA: DGL – ICAO: KDGL – FAA: DGL
Summary
Airport type		Public
Owner		City of Douglas
Serves		Douglas, Arizona
Elevation AMSL		4,173 ft / 1,272 m
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	ft	m	Surface
3/21	5,760	1,756	Asphalt
18/36	4,095	1,248	Dirt
Statistics (2005)
Aircraft operations			7,500
Source: Federal Aviation Administration^[1]

Douglas Municipal Airport (IATA: DGL, ICAO: KDGL, FAA LID: DGL) is a public airport located two miles (3 km) east of the central business district of Douglas, a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States. The airport is owned by the City of Douglas.^[1] It is not served by any commercial airlines at this time.

1 Facilities and aircraft
2 History
3 See Also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Facilities and aircraft

Douglas Municipal Airport covers an area of 640 acres (259 ha) which contains two runways: 3/21 has an asphalt pavement measuring 5,760 x 75 ft. (1,756 x 23 m) and 18/36 has a dirt surface measuring 4,095 x 100 ft. (1,248 x 30 m). For the 12-month period ending July 31, 2005, the airport had 7,500 general aviation aircraft operations, an average of 20 per day.^[1]

There is also an Arizona State Prison on the site. The area is all flat desert land.

[edit] History

Douglas Municpal Airport was was constructed in 1939 as the Douglas Army Airfield for the United States Army Air Forces. It was under the command of the 461st Army Air Force Base Unit, AAF West Coast Training Center and opened in April 1940.

Improvements included 418 buildings, 6 runways, 16 taxiways, a parking apron, 7 hangers, a sewage treatment facility, associated utilities, an ordnance storage area, 2 pistol ranges and a skeet range.

It was operated as a flying taining school during World War II, being the home of the 3014th (Pilot School, Advanced, 2-engine). At Douglas aviation cadets received their pilot wings and commissions as second lieutenants or appointments as flight officers in the Army Air Force. It was one of four Army Air Fields in the United States to have both African-American soldiers and WACs, and was the second air field to receive black WACs.

Aircraft assigned to the base were BT-14's, AT-6's, UC-78's, AT-9's, AT-17's, and B-25's

After the war, the facility became the Bisbee-Douglas International Airport in 1949. Most of the original buildings are gone, and only two of the seven original runways are still in use.