Opa-locka Airport (IATA: OPF, ICAO: KOPF, FAA LID: OPF), also known as Opa-locka Executive Airport, is a general aviation airport and joint civil-military airfield located in Opa-locka and 10 miles (16 km) north of the central business district of Miami, in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States.^[1]

The airport has a control tower which is manned from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM. The airport has four fixed base operators. It is owned by Miami-Dade County and operated by the Miami-Dade Aviation Department.^[2]

The tenant military activity is Coast Guard Air Station Miami, operating HU-25 Guardian jet aircraft and HH-65 Dolphin helicopters for coastal patrol and air-sea rescue operations. Much of CGAS Miami's facilities were originally built during World War II as part of the former Naval Air Station Miami.

DayJet previously provided an on-demand jet air taxi service from this airport to 44 airports in 5 states. The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in 2008.

The airport is currently served by several cargo and charter airlines who use the U.S. customs facility. Maintenance and modification of airliners up to Boeing 747 size is carried out by several aviation firms.

[edit] History

Aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss retired from aircraft development and manufacturing in the 1920s and became a real estate developer in Florida. In 1926 he founded the City of Opa-locka, naming it Opa-tisha-woka-locka (quickly shortened to Opa-locka), a Native American name that translates into the high land north of the little river on which there is a camping place.

Adjacent to the city he created the Florida Aviation Camp on a large tract of land, and moved his Glenn Curtiss Aviation School there from its former location close to Biscayne Bay in Miami. He transferred part of the land to the City of Miami, and it became the Miami Municipal Airport. This airport was also known as Glenn Curtiss Field. In 1937 Amelia Earhart started her attempt to circumnavigate the world from this airport.^[3][4] A larger area to the east of Miami Municipal Airport was developed during the 1930s as All-American Airport. The All-American Airport was acquired by the City of Miami around 1938 and renamed "Miami International (Master) Airport".^[5] Miami Municipal Airport and Miami International (Master) Airport were purchased from the city by the Federal government in 1942 and added to Naval Air Station Miami (NAS Miami) as Miami Municipal Field and Master Field (later referred to colloquially as "Masters Field"), respectively. Miami Municipal Field was connected to Masters Field by a taxiway that crossed the railroad tracks which separated the two fields. Miami Municipal Field was renamed Amelia Earhart Field in 1947.^[6] The All-American Air Races were held at Miami Municipal/Amelia Earhart Field or All-American Airport/Miami International (Master) Airport from 1929 until 1935, and the All-American Air Maneuvers from 1935 until 1941 and from 1946 to 1950.^[5][7]

Shortly before he died in 1930, Curtiss transferred the rest of his Florida Aviation Camp property to the United States Navy. This property became a Naval Reserve Aviation Training Base (NRATB). This station supported both heavier-than-air and lighter-than-air aircraft. The dirigible USS Akron stopped at what became NAS Miami on both legs of its 1933 trip to the Panama Canal Zone, and departed the station less than two weeks before its fatal crash in April 1933. The base was one of the stops on the triangular Germany-Brazil-United States-Germany route of the Graf Zeppelin^[8]. Major expansion of the base began in 1939, and it was commissioned as Naval Air Station Miami (NAS Miami) in 1940.

Aerial view of NAS Miami in the mid-1940s

During World War II, NAS Miami was headquarters for operations of the U.S. Naval Air Training Command, with six training bases.^[4] NAS Miami consisted of the original training base, known as Mainside or Opa-Locka, Miami Municipal Field and Master Field. At its peak, the base employed 7,200 officers and men and 3,100 civilians.^[6] Activity continued on a reduced basis after the war. Master Field became Marine Corps Air Station Miami (MCAS Miami) circa 1955.^[9]. MCAS Miami was closed in 1959, the property was transferred to Dade County, and the Dade County Junior College opened there in 1961. In 1962 the remainder of the NAS property, except for a portion reserved for the U. S. Coast Guard, was transferred to Dade County, and became Opa-locka Airport. In 1965, Coast Guard Air Station Miami transferred its operations from Dinner Key to the Opa-locka Airport.

Some of the 9/11 hijackers trained at the airport.^[10]

[edit] Facilities and aircraft

Opa-locka Airport covers an area of 1,810 acres (732 ha) which contains three asphalt paved runways: 9L/27R measuring 8,002 x 150 ft (2,439 x 46 m), 9R/27L measuring 4,306 x 100 ft (1,312 x 30 m) and 12/30 measuring 6,800 x 150 ft (2,073 x 46 m).^[1]

Fire protection at the airport is provided by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department^[11] Station 25^[12].

For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2001, the airport had 149,813 aircraft operations, an average of 410 per day: 83% general aviation, 11% military, 5% air taxi and <1% scheduled commercial. At that time there were are 291 aircraft based at this airport: 40% single-engine, 36% multi-engine, 11% jet, 7% helicopter and 6% military.^[1]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Opa-locka Executive Airport (official site)
• Opa-locka AirportPDF (414 KiB) brochure from CFASPP (June 2007)
• FAA Airport Diagram(PDF), effective 19 Nov 2009
• FAA Terminal Procedures for OPF, effective 19 Nov 2009
• Resources for this airport:
  • AirNav airport information for KOPF
  • ASN accident history for OPF
  • FlightAware airport information and live flight tracker
  • NOAA/NWS latest weather observations
  • SkyVector aeronautical chart for KOPF