Freeman Municipal Airport


Freeman Municipal Airport is a public use airport located two nautical miles southwest of the central business district of Seymour, a city in Jackson County, Indiana, United States. It is owned by the Seymour Airport Authority. This airport is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation facility.

History

Established by the United States Army Air Forces in 1942, it became first USAAF helicopter training school in June 1944. Black aviators, including a group of Tuskegee Airmen, trained at Freeman Field. In April 1945, several black officers tried to integrate an officers' club resulting in what became known as the "Freeman Field Mutiny". The mutiny is generally regarded by historians of the Civil Rights Movement as an important step toward full integration of the armed forces and as a model for later efforts to integrate public facilities through civil disobedience.
After the end of World War II, Freeman AAF became a storage depot of many captured German and Italian aircraft. Training at the field had stopped and it became the site for the storage of American and foreign aircraft. Freeman Field was closed and declared surplus on December 30, 1946. It was deactivated in November 1948 and turned over to local civilian authorities for use as a civil airport.

Facilities and aircraft

Freeman Municipal Airport covers an area of 2,100 acres at an elevation of 574.11 feet above sea level verified by the United States Geological Survey . It has two asphalt paved runways: 14/32 is 5,502 by 100 feet and 5/23 is 5,500 by 100 feet. It also has two unpaved turf runways: 18U/36U is 1,200 by 100 feet and 9U/27U is 1,000 by 100 feet.
For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2009, the airport had 13,127 aircraft operations, an average of 35 per day: 78% general aviation, 21% air taxi, and 1% military. At that time there were 66 aircraft based at this airport: 67% single-engine, 23% ultralight, 9% multi-engine, and 1% helicopter.