Malden Regional 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) 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 Malden, a city in

Dunklin County Dunklin County is located in the Bootheel of the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,283. The largest city and county seat is Kennett. Dunklin County comprises the Kennett, MO Micropolitan Statistical Area. ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

, United States. This airport is included in the

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 ...

, which categorized it as a ''

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 ...

'' facility. It was previously known as Malden Municipal Airport and is located on the site of the former Malden Army Airfield and Malden Air Base.

History

Malden Army Airfield

Acquired in 1941; construction proceeded throughout 1942 and was activated as Malden Army Airfield on January 6, 1943 by the

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 ...

. Assigned to Eastern Flying Training Command as a basic (level 1) flight training airfield. Flying training was conducted by 319th Aviation Group (Basic). Squadrons were 1069; 1070; 1071 and 1072 Flight Training Squadrons, equipped with

Fairchild PT-19 The Fairchild PT-19 (company designation Fairchild M62) is an American monoplane primary trainer aircraft that served with the United States Army Air Forces, Royal Air Force, RAF and Royal Canadian Air Force, RCAF during World War II. Design ...

s as the primary trainer used. Also had several

PT-17 Stearman The Stearman (Boeing) Model 75 is an American biplane formerly used as a military Trainer (aircraft), trainer aircraft, of which at least 10,626 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Stearman Aircraft became a subsidiary o ...

s and a few

P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter-bomber that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and enabled a rapid entry ...

s assigned. Malden also had five local auxiliary airfields in vicinity for emergency and overflow landings. Conducted contract flight training and flying training until inactivated and the facility being transferred to I Troop Carrier Command 15 June 1944. Under I TCC, the mission was to train Troop Carrier Groups for missions in the Pacific Theater and the planned Invasion of Japan. However I TCC never began training operations with end of war with Japan in August. Inactivated on September 30, 1945. and turned over to Army Corps of Engineers on February 1, 1946. Transferred to War Assets Administration who conveyed facility to the local government as an airport in 1948.

Malden Air Base

Reactivated as Malden Air Base on July 11, 1951 under USAF

Air Training Command The Air Training Command (ATC) is a former United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command designation. It was headquartered at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, but was initially formed at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. It was re-designated ...

. Mission of Malden was to train pilots caused by shortages due to expansion of the Air Force during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. Anderson Air Activities of Milwaukee, Wisconsin conducted basic contract flight training under 3305th Pilot Training Group (Contract Flying). With pilot production decreasing, the ATC commander suggested closing Malden, in early 1959. However, it wasn't until late December 1959 that Headquarters USAF approved the ATC request. The last primary class graduated on June 29, 1960, and one day later ATC terminated Anderson's training contract. On July 26 the command discontinued the 3305th Pilot Training Group (Contract Primary) with the implementation of USAF Consolidated Pilot Training. Shaw, Frederick J. (2004), ''Locating Air Force Base Sites, History’s Legacy'', Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, Washington DC.

Facilities and aircraft

Malden Regional Airport covers an area of 2,740

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

s (1,109 ha) 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 294 feet (90 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

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 with

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 ...

surfaces: 18/36 is 5,011 by 100 feet (1,527 x 30 m) and 14/32 is 4,999 by 80 feet (1,524 x 24 m). For the 12-month period ending June 14, 2010, the airport had 9,000 aircraft operations, an average of 24 per day: 94%

, 3%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. History The concept of air taxis existed as early as the 1910s. This concept goes back as early as 1917 with Glenn Curtiss’ prototype, the auto-plane. Furthermor ...

, and 2%

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

. At that time there were 19 aircraft based at this airport: 74% 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 ...

and 26% multi-engine.

References

External links

Airport page
at City of Malden website

Aerial image as of April 1996
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 ...