Atlanta Speedway Airport (formerly 4A7), is a public-use airport 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) west 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 ...

Hampton Hampton may refer to: Places Australia *Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia * Hampton, New South Wales *Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region * Hampton, Victoria ** Hampton railway station, Melbour ...

, a city in

Henry County, Georgia Henry County is located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2020 census, the population of Henry County was 240,712, up from 203,922 in 2010. The county seat is McDonough. The county was named for Patric ...

, United States. It was known as Clayton County Airport – Tara Field, which was the name still used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the

Georgia Department of Transportation The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) is the organization in charge of developing and maintaining all state and federal roadways in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. In addition to highways, the department also has a li ...

(GDOT) until 2011. The airport was renamed Atlanta South Regional Airport, which was approved by the airport board of commissioners in December 2011, and was approved by the GDOT and the FAA before it went into effect. It was also known as Henry County Airport from 2013 to 2017. Although the airport is located in Henry County, it was owned and operated by Clayton County to the north from 1992 until 2011. It is not near most of that county, except for its very small southern tip. The north end of Clayton County has part of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, thus Tara Field served

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 ...

, especially for the

Atlanta Motor Speedway Atlanta Motor Speedway (currently known as EchoPark Speedway for sponsorship reasons, formerly known as the Atlanta International Raceway from 1960 to 1990) is a quad-oval Oval track racing#Intermediate, intermediate speedway in Hampton, Georg ...

immediately next to it. At its July 12, 2011, meeting, the Clayton County Board of Commissioners voted to sell the airport to Henry County in a deal worth $17.7 million. The Henry County Board of Commissioners agreed to the purchase at a meeting on July 13, 2011, and the sale was completed in August 2011. Henry County paid just $2.7 million toward the purchase price, with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Georgia Department of Transportation funding the balance of $15 million. The Henry County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday, December 4, 2012, to move forward with the runway expansion project, which extended the runway to 5,500 feet and widened it by 25 feet. The project was complete in time for the Labor Day race at

in Hampton. 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 ...

for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a ''

'' facility. There is no

weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasting, weather forecasts and to study the weather and clima ...

or FAA flight info reported for this airport. On April 15, 2013, the airport runway was closed for 2 months to allow for construction on widening of the runway. Phase I of the Airport Expansion began in February 2013 and was completed for the 2013 NASCAR weekend at the nearby Speedway. Expansion consisted of adding 1,000 feet to the 24 end and widening the existing runway 25 feet. At the completion of Phase I, the new runway will be 5,503 feet long by 100 feet wide.

History

The airport was originally named Bear Creek Airport and was built in the late 60's and operated by a Mr. Morris. In July 2005, the airport and the adjacent speedway were hit by an F2

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the ...

on the evening of July 6. Millions of dollars in damage was done to the airport, in addition to the tens of millions at the speedway. Four

airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...

s were flipped over,

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

s were torn apart, and

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a common type of fibre-reinforced plastic, fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened i ...

insulation Insulation may refer to: Thermal * Thermal insulation, use of materials to reduce rates of heat transfer ** List of insulation materials ** Building insulation, thermal insulation added to buildings for comfort and energy efficiency *** Insulated ...

and

sheet metal Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process. Thicknesses can vary significantly; extremely thin sheets are considered foil (metal), foil or Metal leaf, leaf, and pieces thicker than 6 mm (0.25 ...

were plastered into

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

fence A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or net (textile), netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its ...

s, along with another plane. The storm was a result of Hurricane Cindy, after it had already been downgraded to a

tropical depression A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

after

landfall Landfall is the event of a storm moving over land after being over water. More broadly, and in relation to human travel, it refers to 'the first land that is reached or seen at the end of a journey across the sea or through the air, or the fact ...

. Another

severe thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustics, acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorm ...

struck in 2014, causing a

downburst In meteorology, a downburst is a strong downward and outward gushing wind system that emanates from a point source above and blows radially, that is, in straight lines in all directions from the area of impact at surface level. It originate ...

with winds at minimal hurricane strength on the evening of September 7. Planes were again flipped over, destroying six of them and damaging another 15, in addition to relatively minor damage to some hangar doors and other airport facilities. The FAA has changed the airport ID from 4A7 to KHMP. In 2013, the county changed the facility’s name from Atlanta South Regional Airport to Henry County Airport, and again in 2017 to Atlanta Speedway Airport, due to its location across the street from

, where Turns 1 and 2 overlook the runway. Speedway Motorsports officials have indicated that they will allow the county to use the new name which identifies the airport more closely with the race track facility (aircraft used by teams will fly into the airport), and it will also help increase visibility around the United States for economic development purposes.

Facilities and aircraft

The airport covers an area of 160

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 (65 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 874 feet (266 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 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 6/24 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 5,501 by 100 feet (1,677 x 30 m). For the 12-month period ending June 9, 2011, the airport had 42,000 aircraft operations, an average of 115 per day: 96%

and 4%

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 ...

. At that time there were 93 aircraft based at this airport: 63% 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 ...

, 15% multi-engine, 4% jet, 14%

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 ...

, and 3%

ultralight Ultralight aviation (called microlight aviation in some countries) is the flying of lightweight, 1- or 2-seat fixed-wing aircraft. Some countries differentiate between weight-shift control and conventional three-axis control aircraft with aile ...

References

External links

Atlanta Speedway Airport official site

Aerial image as of April 2002
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 ...

'' * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clayton County Airport - Tara Field Airports in Georgia (U.S. state) Buildings and structures in Henry County, Georgia Transportation in Henry County, Georgia

History

Facilities and aircraft

See also

References

External links