Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport


Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport is a public airport located four miles southeast of the central business district of Sanford, a town in York County, Maine, United States. The airport operated as Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Sanford supporting operations of Naval Air Station Brunswick from 15 April 1943 until 1 February 1946. This airport is now publicly owned by Town of Sanford.

Facilities and aircraft

Sanford Regional Airport covers an area of which contains two runways:
For 12-month period ending 29 August 2006 the airport had 76,010 aircraft operations, an average of 208 per day: 96% general aviation, 4% air taxi and <1% military. There are 78 aircraft based at this airport: 92% single engine and 8% multi engine.

Fixed-Base Operator and Flight Schools

There is a fixed-base operator and several flight schools on the airfield.
The FBO is Southern Maine Aviation, which has Jet Fuel, Aviation Gasoline and MoGas. They also operate an aircraft maintenance facility, a flight school and have facilities for transient flight crew and passengers.
There are three flight schools on the field:
The Sanford Airport began as an airfield constructed by the Sanford Mills in the 1930s, with a single airstrip and hangar. With the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941, the airfield was expanded by the United States Navy in 1942 and formally commissioned as Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Sanford in 1943. It served as one of several secondary airfields to the primary Naval Air Station Brunswick. Its runway network was enlarged and paved, and barracks and a control tower were built on what is now the southwestern side of the airfield. A torpedo squadron and a fighter squadron were stationed here in 1944, and the field was used for training exercises. After the war ended, the facilities were largely mothballed, but remained manned until the 1960s. Of the structures built by the Navy, only a hangar and the control tower/administration building survived. The latter, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, was demolished in 2006-07 because it was in poor condition and the tower was deemed a hazard to aviation.
In 1955, Colonial Aircraft began production of the Skimmer amphibian in Sanford, Maine. Later in 1959, the type certificate for the Skimmer was sold to the Lake Aircraft Corporation. Lake continued to produce modified versions of the Skimmer in Sanford as the Lake Buckaneer and Lake Renegade until 1994. Six record breaking flights departing from Sanford Airport took place in Lake Renegades piloted by Robert Mann and Peter Foster in 1988 and 1989. The flights set new altitude records for piston amphibians and seaplanes flying to a maximum altitude of 27,300 feet.