Smith Field is a public airport north of downtown

Fort Wayne Fort Wayne is a city in Allen County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 at the 2020 United S ...

, in Allen County,

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. It is owned and operated by the Fort Wayne Allen County Airport Authority. In the FAA's

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 2009–2013 it is 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 ...

'' airport. The airport was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2002.

History

Smith Field is Fort Wayne's first municipal airport and is one of America's oldest surviving aviation sites. The United States government's pioneering of a national airmail system begun in 1918, provided essential subsidies for America's fledgling airline industry. On June 25, 1925 the city of Fort Wayne commissioned this airfield as the Paul Baer Municipal Airport. New paved runways, the huge heated Hangar #2 and other ongoing improvements to Baer Field finally attracted a commercial airmail carrier to Fort Wayne in December 1930. Transamerican, Capitol Airways, and Trans Continental and Western (TWA) followed with passenger service to Fort Wayne during the early 1930s. In 1932 nearly 3,000 passengers were served at old Paul Baer Municipal Airport. ''Note:'' This includes and Accompanying photographs Federal

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

employment programs of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

further upgraded the airfield. In 1933, the Commerce Department's Aeronautics Branch and the Civil Works Administration (CWA) began a nationwide program of airport development. The CWA funded 13,108 man-hours of labor on Baer Field in 1933 alone, including drainage, lighting, sodding, tree removal, improved heating systems, improved parking areas, and the creation of flowerbeds. By 1934, the airport had improved the concrete runways and aprons, and in 1935 and 1936, the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

(WPA) funded more concrete pavement, lighting upgrades, and radio communication equipment. Old Baer Field was one of the largest WPA projects in Indiana. During this period, the airport enjoyed $311,058.42 in improvements paid for by the CWA, the Federal Emergency Relief Agency, the WPA, and the Allen County Scrip Organization. Famous pilots who have visited Smith Field include: "Wrong Way"

Douglas Corrigan Douglas Corrigan (born Clyde Groce Corrigan; January 22, 1907 – December 9, 1995) was an American aviator, nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight in July from Long Beach, California, to New York City, he then flew from ...

, race pilot and military hero General

Jimmy Doolittle James Harold Doolittle (December 14, 1896 – September 27, 1993) was an American military general and aviation pioneer who received the Medal of Honor for his raid on Japan during World War II, known as the Doolittle Raid in his honor. He ma ...

, stunt flyer Jimmie Hayslip, Walter Hinton,

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was The World's Billionaires, one of the richest and most influential peo ...

, airmail pilot George Hill,

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, and author. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York (state), New York to Paris, a distance of . His aircra ...

, Captain

Charles Nungesser Charles Eugène Jules Marie Nungesser (15 March 1892 – presumably on or after 8 May 1927) was a French ace pilot and adventurer. Nungesser was a renowned ace in France, ranking third highest in the country with 43 air combat victories during W ...

, and fighter "Ace of Aces" Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. Captain Sir George Wilkins flew into the airport in the aircraft he had piloted to the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

. Famed pilot and explorer

Wiley Post Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 – August 15, 1935) was an American aviator during the Aviation between the World Wars, interwar period and the first aviator, pilot to fly solo around the world. Known for his work in high-altitude flyi ...

also visited the field in the

Lockheed Vega The Lockheed Vega is an American five- to seven-seat high-wing monoplane airliner built by the Lockheed Corporation starting in 1927. It became famous for its use by a number of record-breaking pilots who were attracted to its high speed and lo ...

"Winnie Mae", which he flew around the world. As every prominent aviator arrived, so did the community. The federal government's anticipation of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and old Baer Field's role in the pioneer airmail service brought the U.S. War Department to Fort Wayne in 1940. Baer Field had been included in a list of some 1000 airfields that the Army Air Corps evaluated for new military flight operations. The new Development of Landing Areas for National Defense (DLAND) program eventually funded construction at 535 airports during World War II. Fearing the loss of civilian access to Baer Field, city leaders took options to buy south of the city should the War Department decide to operate a military airfield in Fort Wayne. Early in January 1941, the War Department informed the city that it would locate a base in Fort Wayne if it could take possession by February 1. Some thirty local businessmen signed notes totaling the $125,000 needed to arrange for the acquisition by the city. The War Department signed a $1/year lease for the south side property and invited the community to suggest a name. The citizens of Fort Wayne supplied: "General Anthony Wayne Field", in honor of the Revolutionary War hero who was the builder of the first United States fort in Fort Wayne, and "Smith Field", celebrating Fort Wayne native Arthur "Art" Smith. Since Army Air Corps policy was to name airfields for deceased military aviators, a solution was found in naming the new Army airfield (south of town) after Paul Baer and renaming the existing municipal airport after Art Smith. The Army airfield (presently Fort Wayne International Airport) was officially designated the new "Baer Field" on June 14, 1941, and became a live Army base on December 6, 1941—the day before the attack on

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

—with the arrival of 31 P-39 Airacobra fighter planes. Within days, as many as 100 of the planes were stationed there. The old Baer Field, now renamed Smith Field, would remain Fort Wayne's civil airport through World War II, and has since served general aviation.

Modern history

In 2010, Runway 5/23 was rebuilt. In 2024, a group called the National Airmail Museum announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding to lease Hangar 2.

Facilities and aircraft

Smith Field covers 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 835 feet (255 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

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 ...

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: 5/23 is 3,124 by 60 feet (952 x 18 m) and 13/31 is 2,922 by 100 feet (891 x 30 m). In 2007 the airport had 20,109 aircraft operations, average 55 per day: 100%

and <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 ...

. 56 aircraft were then based at this airport: 96% 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 4% multi-engine. The airport offers aviation instruction and plane rental through Sweet Aviation, a subsidiary of Sweetwater Sound.

References

External links

*
Smith Field Air Service

Mich. plane crash kills survivor of earlier crash
MSNBC article about Stephen Hatch, who helped get the airport on the National Register of Historic Places * * {{authority control Airports established in 1925 Transportation in Fort Wayne, Indiana Airports in Indiana Buildings and structures in Fort Wayne, Indiana Economy of Fort Wayne, Indiana Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana National Register of Historic Places in Fort Wayne, Indiana Works Progress Administration in Indiana Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Airports on the National Register of Historic Places 1925 establishments in Indiana Transportation buildings and structures in Allen County, Indiana

History

Modern history

Facilities and aircraft

See also

References

External links