Worth fighting for
8 airports our members love
Aviation History
Wings Field
A visit to AOPA’s birthplace
One summer day in 1929, two pilots of the Pylon Club, Lewin Barringer and Alfred L. Wolf, were flying north of Philadelphia, over Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. They spotted a large meadow on a farm near the small village of Blue Bell and decided to land there.
A discussion with the farmer ensued. Wolf and Barringer learned the 134-acre dairy farm, Twin Springs Farm—together with its farmhouse (built in 1776) and a barn—was for sale. This bit of news was passed on to Pylon Club members Jack Bartow (president of the Bartow Beacon Company, maker of airport lighting systems and airway beacons) and John Story Smith (vice president of the Pottstown Stove Company, a machine firm that made the Brownbach Kitten engine that powered the Taylor Cub and, later, president of the Jacobs Engine Company).
Smith bought Twin Springs. Because the Patco Field used by the Pylon Club was getting crowded, he built a new airport on the farm. He called it Wings Port, and created an adjacent social center he called the Philadelphia Aviation Country Club (PACC). In 1931 two hangars were built—of stone, a rare building material for a hangar, then as now. As for Wolf, he bought an adjoining lot, where he built a house and his own airstrip.
Many of AOPA’s early business, organizational, and social events took place at the PACC at Wings Port—now called Wings Field. Today, a bronze plaque in the PACC lounge serves as a reminder of what many call AOPA’s birthplace.
Excerpted from Freedom to Fly: AOPA and the History of General Aviation in America, published by AOPA on the occasion of its eightieth anniversary. Buy it online for $39.95.
www.aopa.org/freedomtoflybook
Whomever deserves the credit for that saying knows what pilots know: The airport is a gateway to adventure. AOPA fights for airports every day and while we’ve lost a few, we never stop appreciating the value an airport brings to a community, to the aviation world, and to each and every pilot.
Gone but not forgotten: Merrill C. Meigs Field (CGX). After a decades-long battle to save it, Chicago’s Meigs Field was taken out gangster style. Then-Mayor Richard M. Daley ordered his city crews to bulldoze the 3,900-foot runway in the middle of the night, stranding aircraft and destroying any hope of another aircraft ever landing there again. Years later, the proposed park and concert venue on Northerly Island that Daley wanted so badly still does not exist and Chicago-area pilots and beyond wish this lakefront airport had not been executed.
Where it all began: First Flight Airport (FFA). No self-respecting pilot can miss landing where the Wright brothers first flew. The 3,000-foot runway at the Wright Brothers Memorial National Park is a pilgrimage for pilots and is worth the flight. A towering 60-foot granite statute atop the dune at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, honors the brothers’ 1903 flight, and history is chronicled in the landmarks and museums there, too.
Challenging approach: Sedona Airport (SEZ). Test your skills on this scenic airport set high on a mesa in Arizona. Touching down on the 5,000-foot runway has been compared to landing on an aircraft carrier.
Airport in the sky: Catalina Airport (AVX). This California island airport is called the airport in the sky because it’s 3,000-foot runway is located at the highest point on Catalina Island—1,600 feet above sea level—and is often obscured by low-lying clouds.
Please don’t go, SMO: Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO). Poor SMO—although it’s one of the oldest and most-storied airports in the country, its city doesn’t like it and has tried every way imaginable to rid itself of this Los Angeles-locked 3,500-foot runway made famous by Donald Douglas and his DC–3.
All that jazz: Lakefront Airport (NEW). Take a step back in time to the art deco era of the 1930s at this Works Progress Administration terminal on the shores of Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain (p. 29).
AOPA’s birthplace: Wings Field (LOM). From the Philadelphia Aviation Country Club to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, this venerable airport has served pilots since 1928 and is the location of AOPA’s first meeting.
Summer memories: Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport (BHB). Sometimes an airport is loved because of its beauty, and Maine in the summertime is a magnificent place to fly to.
What did we miss? Share your favorite airports at [email protected] .
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