Essex Skypark

Essex Airpark
IATA: none ICAO: none FAA LID: W48
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner	Baltimore County
Operator	Essex Skypark Association
Serves	Essex, Maryland
Location	Essex, MD
Elevation AMSL	15 ft ft / 4.6 m m
Coordinates	39°15.76′N 76°25.98′W / 39.26267°N 76.43300°W / 39.26267; -76.43300Coordinates: 39°15.76′N 76°25.98′W / 39.26267°N 76.43300°W / 39.26267; -76.43300
Website	http://www.essexskyparkassn.org
Map
W48 Location of airport in Maryland
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 16/34 2,084 635 Asphalt N/S 3,000 914 Water
Statistics (2013)
Aircraft operations 8,546 Based aircraft 36
Source: Federal Aviation Administration. Coordinates from

Essex Skypark (IATA: W48) is a publicly owned general aviation airport and seaplane base located in Baltimore County, Maryland, on the Back River Neck Peninsula off the Chesapeake Bay. It is approximately three miles southeast of Baltimore, Maryland and just south of Martin State Airport.

The 48 acre airport is surrounded by 588 acres of undisturbed and pristine wetlands and heavy forest. As the last light general aviation airport in Baltimore County, the airpark offers a 2,084 by 28 foot asphalt runway and a 3,000 by 300 foot water runway. Local aviation enthusiast use it to fly single engine airplanes, ultralights, seaplanes, banner towing, and Radio controlled aircraft. Essex Skypark has been an operating public use airport for over 60 years.

Aviation enthusiast William Diffendahl carved the airpark out of local farmland in the late 1930s and early 1940s and it was used by aviation enthusiasts from the working communities around the Baltimore Glenn L. Martin Company plant that built the Martin M-130 flying boat, the Martin B-26 Marauder bomber and other aircraft in the 1940s. A 1947 Maryland Airport Directory listed the airport as having two intersecting grass runways: a north–south strip 2,200 feet in length and an east–west strip 1,800 feet in length. Buildings on the airport (which was owned and operated by Isabelle Diffendahl) included an administration building, a 44-foot by 60-foot hangar as well as eight t-hangars. The early years were very good to the airport with more than 200 pilots calling the field their homeport. These pilots included crop dusters, air traffic reporters, traveling salesmen, daredevils and more.

Sometime around 1949 the land was purchased by J. S. Shapiro and renamed Eastern Airport. The airport continued to flourish and prosper throughout the 1950s and 1960s adding a seaplane base on adjacent Back River. By 1964, the longer of the two turf runways was paved and taxiways added. In 1967 the airport was renamed Essex Skypark. Many factors led to a decline in growth and revenues in the following years. By the 1970s however, things had stabilized.