Nashua Airport at Boire Field 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

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude at t ...

s (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 Nashua, a city in

Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Hillsborough County is the most populous County (United States), county in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 422,937, almost one-third the population of the entire state. Its c ...

, United States. Owned by the Nashua Airport Authority, It is included in the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

(FAA)

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 ...

for 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a national reliever airport facility.

History

The airport dates back to 1934, when the city of Nashua bought a small existing airport that lacked a hangar and had a grass runway. Over the next several years Nashua, with federal aid, paved the runway and constructed buildings. The hangar was constructed from bricks reused from a Nashua factory that burned in 1930 during the Crown Hill Fire. In 1943, the airport was named Boire Field after Ensign Paul Boire, Nashua's first casualty in World War II. The Nashua Airport Authority was established to oversee the airport in 1961. The New England Aeronautical Institute was founded at the airport in 1965. The institute's Daniel Webster Junior College division was founded in 1967. In 1978, the schools merged to form the

Daniel Webster College Daniel Webster College (DWC) was a private college in Nashua, New Hampshire, United States. It operated from 1965 through 2017 and had a strong aeronautics focus during much of its history. It was a nonprofit college until 2009, when ITT Educati ...

(DWC). Nashua Airport became one of the busiest airports in New England in terms of take-offs and landings due to its use by DWC for flight training, though the program was ended in 2010. The airport's

control tower Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled a ...

was built in 1972. The airport was one of the first to operate with a non-federal control tower in the early 1990s. Contract towers such as the one at Boire Field are common today. In 2012, runway 14-32 was moved to the northeast and extended by , to to accommodate larger corporate jets. The runway officially opened on August 31, 2012. The original runway was removed. Many taxiways to the new runway were rebuilt during the construction. In 2016,

Southern New Hampshire University Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is a private university between Manchester, New Hampshire, Manchester and Hooksett, New Hampshire, United States. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education, along with ...

(SNHU) agreed to absorb the DWC's faculty and academic programs after its parent company

ITT Tech ITT Technical Institute (ITT Tech) was a private for-profit technical institute with its headquarters in Carmel, Indiana and many campuses throughout the United States. Founded in 1969 and growing to 130 campuses in 38 states of the United States ...

declared bankruptcy. SNHU placed the winning bid for DWC's flight center, tower building, and hangar, and the university is exploring the viability of reviving DWC's former flight training program.

Facilities and aircraft

Boire Field 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 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 one

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, ...

designated 14/32 with an

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 ...

surface measuring . For the 12-month period ending October 1, 2022, the airport had 58,726 aircraft operations, an average of 161 per day: 100%

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 ...

, <1%

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 <1%

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 228 aircraft based at this airport: 184 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 ...

, 24 multi-engine, 11 jet, and 9

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

. There is space for 441 aircraft located on the field. Air Traffic Control is at the airport from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. It has no scheduled commercial service.

Airport services

The airport has private flight schools offering training and certification in fixed-wing airplanes and helicopters. On-demand air charter is offered by providers, including Air Direct Airways and Infinity Aviation, which operates a number of Hawker mid-sized

business jet A business jet, private jet, or bizjet is a jet aircraft designed for transporting small groups of people, typically business executives and high-ranking coworker, associates. Business jets are generally designed for faster air travel and more ...

aircraft. Infinity Aviation Services is a

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) that provides aircraft servicing, fueling and maintenance and flight planning resources. GFW Aeroservices, a former FBO, ceased operation in March 2011. The second-floor Midfield Cafe is open for breakfast and lunch from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., six days a week, closed on Tuesdays. The airport hosts the

Aviation Center, Aviation Operations Management Program, and an accelerated Flight Program.

References

External links

Nashua Airport - Boire Field official site

Infinity Aviation Services
an
Nashua Jet Aviation
the

s (FBOs)
New Hampshire Aviation Historical Society

Aerial image as of April 1998
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 ...

'' * * {{US-airport-ga, ASH Airports in New Hampshire Airports established in 1934 Buildings and structures in Nashua, New Hampshire Transportation buildings and structures in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire 1934 establishments in New Hampshire

History

Facilities and aircraft

Airport services

See also

References

External links