The airport is on the former site of McClellan Air Force Base, which existed as a military base from 1939 to 2000. It was transferred to Sacramento County in 2000, as part of its conversion into McClellan Business Park, and was purchased by McClellan Business Park in October 2017. The airport is a public-use facility which operates as an uncontrolled airfield in what the FAA designates as Class "E" Airspace. The airport is mainly used for general aviation. Current airport tenants include CAL FIRE, Calstar, Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento, Dassault Falcon, United States Forest Service, PODS, and the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District. All ground handling and fueling is completed by McClellan Jet Services, a subsidiary of McClellan Business Park.
History
The air force base was established in 1935. It was named after Major Hezekiah McClellan on 1 December 1939, a pioneer in arctic aeronautical tests. Born in 1894, he died on 25 May 1936 when his Consolidated P-30 which he was flight testing, crashed near Centerville, Ohio.
Construction of the Pacific Air Depot began in 1935, and the main structures, including administrative buildings, barracks, warehouses and a hospital were completed on 18 April 1938. In 1938 the base was renamed Sacramento Air Depot and underwent a major expansion as a repair and overhaul facility for P-38 and P-39 fighter planes.
On January 3, 1944 a B-17 Flying Fortress slammed into the runway while trying to land, killing all but one of its crew and scattering wreckage over a 15-mile area.[2]
McClellan Airfield has one concrete paved runway (16/34) measuring 10,600 x 150 ft. (3,231 x 46 m). It also has four concrete helipads, all measuring 57 x 57 ft. (17 x 17 m). For the 12-month period ending April 10, 2004, the airport had 10,000 aircraft operations, an average of 27 per day: 40% military, 40% air taxi and 20% general aviation. There are 84 aircraft based at this airport: 4% single-engine, 64% multi-engine, 23% jet and 5% helicopter and
5% military.[1]
The airport also functioned as a joint civil-military facility, providing a base for the United States Coast Guard and its Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento facility. Missions include search and rescue (SAR), law enforcement, aids to navigation support (such as operating lighthouses) and various military operations. In addition, Coast Guard helicopters assigned to the air station deploy to Coast Guard cutters.
^Kyla Cathay (April 13, 2019). "Lodians await news from front in early 1944". LodiLiving. Lodi News-Sentinel. p. 1.
External links
Bell P-39 Repair Line. To step up its delivery of Speedy Bell P-39 "Airacobra" fighter airplanes to American pilots in the South Pacific, the Army Air Forces Air Service Command put American production line methods to work in its repair docks at McClellan Field, California. Two and one-half million dollars worth of airplanes were overhauled by civilian Air Service Command workers at Sacramento, California prior to being sent against the enemy.
