Silver Comet Field at Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport
Silver Comet Field at Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport is a small public useairport in Paulding County, Georgia, United States. Formerly known as Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport and Paulding County Regional Airport, it is owned by the Paulding County Board of Commissioners. The airport is located in Dallas, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta. It is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation facility. Paulding County, located in northwest Metro Atlanta, encompasses 314 square miles and is home to approximately 150,000 residents. Source On October 4, 2013, nearly one year after negotiations and contracts, Paulding County announced a Public Private Partnership with an entrepreneurial startup company called Propeller Investments, llc dba Propeller Airports, llc dba Silver Comet Terminal Partners, llc to develop its airport, which proposed including commercial passenger service, despite the head of the Paulding County Airport Authority's promises to the county residents of transparency and that the airport would remain a general aviation airport. Paulding residents immediately filed several lawsuits, which addressed violations of Georgia's Sunshine Laws and Open Meetings Act, and an ultra vires suit against the Paulding County Industrial Building Authority for overextending its authority. Many of these lawsuits have been filed by attorneys associated with Delta Air Lines. October 2013: Residents file a legal challenge to bond funding for a Paulding airport taxiway expansion that will facilitate airline service. November 2013: Residents file a second legal challenge, questioning Federal Aviation Administration environmental approvals of Paulding airport plans. December 2013: A judge rules in favor of the airport and county in the bond funding case. Residents pledge to appeal. Attorneys announce a settlement of the FAA case, calling for an environmental assessment that will delay the commercialization of the airport for months. January 2014: Paulding residents file a third legal challenge, questioning airport leases and a loan made to fund the taxiway expansion. Paulding's airport is located on Rockmart Highway, approximately 25 miles from the nearest interstate and 40 miles from Midtown Atlanta. Construction was completed in late 2008. It is the ninth local airport in metro Atlanta, and the first new jet-capable airport in Georgia since 1975. To date more than $70M has gone into the construction and development of the airport. Paulding County has spent roughly $10 million of its own money, about in Federal Aviation Administration grants and $7 million in state funds on the airport. It is anticipated that economic development activity at the airport could result in more than in annual economic activity and thousands of jobs for Paulding County over the next decade. Although many U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, this facility is assigned PUJ by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA.
History
In 1975, in anticipation of a second international airport, the city of Atlanta purchased of land in Paulding for $925 per acre. In early 2007 the county purchased of the property for the new general aviation airport. Paulding County is unserved by either rapid transit or freeways.
On February 22, 2012, one worker was killed and another injured while they were working on construction of the airport's second hangar and it collapsed. This hangar had earlier been delayed, in December 2011, when it was discovered that the hangar's concrete slab was not level.
On the night of March 2, 2012, the airport was struck by an EF3 tornado that tore a path across the county. Several million dollars in damage was done, including $1.5 million to the facility, and $5 million to the aircraft parked and stored there, destroying most of them. The roof was ripped off the hangar, and the airport was closed until cleanup and essential repairs were completed. The hangar was so severely damaged it had to be torn down and rebuilt. Repairs to the terminal building were completed in October 2012. The airport became operational with aircraft activity near levels documented prior to the March 2012 tornado, though the airport's only charter service ceased operations there. The storm was part of the tornado outbreak of March 2–3, 2012. It is the second local airport to have been struck by a tornado in recent years, the other being Atlanta Speedway Airport in 2005.
Facilities
Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport covers an area of at an elevation of above mean sea level. It has one southeast/northwest runway designated 13/31 which measures. Made of concrete, it is capable of landing aircraft up to for single-wheel landing gear, and for dual-wheel. A new, terminal building was opened in May 2010, along with the airport's new fixed-base operator, Paulding Jet Center. The airport also has an AWOSweather station, a rotating beacon, and pilot-activated runway lighting. The runway elevation averages AMSL, ±3 feet. PUJ offers an ILS and GPS approach on runway 31. The National Weather Service did not carry observations for this location until late 2012 or early 2013.
