Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Fentress is a military 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 in

Chesapeake, Virginia Chesapeake is an independent city in Virginia, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 249,422, making it the second-most populous city in Virginia, the tenth largest in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 92nd-most populous city in the ...

. This military airport is owned by the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

and is under the operational control of

Naval Air Station Oceana Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana or NAS Oceana is a United States Navy Naval Air Station located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The station is located on 23.9 square kilometers. It has total of 250 aircraft deployed and buildings valued at $800 mi ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. The airfield primarily supports day and night Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP) operations by US Navy and US Marine Corps

F/A-18 Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather supersonic, twinjet, twin-engine, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, fighter and attack airc ...

, and US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet,

E-2 Hawkeye The Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye is an American all-weather, carrier-capable tactical airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft. This twin-turboprop aircraft was designed and developed during the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Grumman Aircraft ...

and

C-2 Greyhound The Grumman C-2 Greyhound is a twin-engine, high-wing cargo aircraft designed to carry supplies, mail, and passengers to and from List of United States Navy aircraft carriers, aircraft carriers of the United States Navy. Its primary mission is ...

aircraft based in Virginia and the Carolinas. Although many U.S. airports use the same three-letter

location identifier A location identifier is a symbolic representation for the name and the location of an airport, navigation aid, or weather station, and is used for staffed air traffic control facilities in air traffic control, telecommunications, computer program ...

for the FAA and

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...

, this airport is assigned NFE by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA.

Facilities

Fentress NALF has one operational

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 Runway 5/23 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 8,004 by 175 feet (2,440 x 53 m). Four additional shorter paved runways dating from the airfield's original construction during World War II are located in the airfield's northern quadrant. These additional runways are closed to aircraft. On 5 July 2011, it was announced that NALF Fentress would close in January 2012 for 9 months for major repairs. Touch and go maneuvers would move to

and Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field.the virginian pilot 5 July 2011 As of 15 October 2012 the airfield was reopened.

Encroachment issues

At the end of June 2014 the Chesapeake City Council voted unanimously to use city and state funds, who plan to put up about $1 million each, to buy property near the Fentress Naval airport in order to prevent encroachment onto the airfield. This is similar to a program of

Virginia Beach, Virginia Virginia Beach (colloquially VB) is the most populous city in the U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. The city is located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in southeastern Virginia. It is the sixth-most populous city in the ...

and the state of Virginia regarding

References

External links

Aerial photo as of 9 April 1990
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 ...

'' * {{Authority control Airports in Virginia Buildings and structures in Chesapeake, Virginia Fentress Transportation in Chesapeake, Virginia