Falcon Field Falcon Field Army Airfield | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 USGS 2006orthophoto | |||||||||||||||
| Summary | |||||||||||||||
| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||||||
| Owner | City of Mesa | ||||||||||||||
| Serves | Mesa, Arizona | ||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 1,394 ft / 425 m | ||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 33°27′39″N111°43′42″W / 33.46083°N 111.72833°W /33.46083; -111.72833 | ||||||||||||||
| Website | www.falconfieldairport.com | ||||||||||||||
| Map | |||||||||||||||
  FFZ Location of airport in Arizona / United States Show map of Arizona FFZ FFZ (the United States) Show map of the United States | |||||||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Helipads | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Statistics | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Source:Federal Aviation Administration[1] | |||||||||||||||
Falcon Field (IATA:MSC,ICAO:KFFZ,FAALID:FFZ) is in an airport located inMaricopa County, Arizona. It was originally built 6miles (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) northeast ofMesa, which later included, and owns it.[1] TheNational Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021categorized it as areliever airport.[2] Scheduled service toBullhead City onWestern Express Air ended in January 2007.[3]
Most U.S. airports use the same three-letterlocation identifier for theFAA andIATA, but Falcon Field is FFZ to the FAA[1] and MSC to the IATA.
Falcon Field got its start beforeWorld War II when Hollywood producerLeland Hayward and pilot John H. "Jack" Connelly foundedSouthwest Airways with funding from friends includingHenry Fonda,Fred Astaire,Ginger Rogers,James Stewart, andHoagy Carmichael. Southwest Airways operated two other airfields inArizona –Thunderbird Field No. 1 (which became the site ofArizona Christian University) and Thunderbird Field No. 2 (which became the site ofScottsdale Airport) – to train pilots from China, Russia and 24 other Allied nations. Falcon was to be Thunderbird Field III and would train British pilots.
However, the British said they would like the field to be named after one of their birds, and thus Falcon Field opened as the No. 4 British Flying Training School (BFTS). There were six BFTS airfields in the U.S., in Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, California and Arizona.
The groundbreaking ceremony for Falcon Field was held at 10:30am on July 16, 1941.Mesa, Arizona mayor,George Nicholas Goodman, andArizona governor, Sidney P. Osbone, dug the first shovels of dirt.[4]
In September 1941 the first cadets of theRoyal Air Force arrived. They trained inStearman PT-17s andNorth American AviationAT-6s. The good weather, wide-open desert terrain, and lack of enemy airpower provided safer and more efficient training than was possible in England. Even so, twenty-three British cadets, one American cadet and four instructors were killed and are buried in theMesa City Cemetery, along with several colleagues who have since died of natural causes. Several thousand pilots were trained there until the RAF installation was closed at the end of the war. The City of Mesa purchased the field from the U.S. government for $1.
From 1945 to 1965 the field was leased out to industrial interests, includingTalley Defense Systems, Astro Rocket Inc., Rocket Power Inc., the Gabriel Company and others.
Eventually it became a civil airfield, owned and operated by the city of Mesa. Falcon Field is the home ofCAE Oxford Aviation Academy, the largest flight school in the world. Student pilots fromJapan,Belgium,The Netherlands,the UK,Italy,Turkey,Mexico andVietnam fly out of Falcon Field. Since 1976 Falcon Field has been the home ofAirbase Arizona, one of the largest units in theCommemorative Air Force (CAF) which operates a flying B-17G "Sentimental Journey" and a B-25J "Maid in the Shade" among other aircraft. On May 19, 2016, the Falcon Field World War II Aviation Hangars were listed in the National Register of Historic Places, reference #16000266.
TheBoeing Company operates aheliport (FAALID:AZ81) andfactory adjacent to Falcon Field, known as the Boeing Mesa Facility.[5] Boeing uses the facility to manufacture and maintain theAH-64 Apache militaryhelicopter.
Local companies:
Local groups:
Local museums:
Flight Schools:
Several scenes of the 1980 aerobatics filmCloud Dancer were filmed at this airport.[14]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
This article incorporatespublic domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency
Currentmilitary installations inArizona | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Army |
|  | ||||||||||||
| Marines |
| |||||||||||||
| Air Force |
| |||||||||||||
| Flying training |
|  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technical training | ||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
