Leesburg Executive Airport Godfrey Field |
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Summary | |||||||||||
Airport type | Public | ||||||||||
Owner | Town of Leesburg | ||||||||||
Serves | Leesburg, Virginia | ||||||||||
Location | Loudoun County, Virginia | ||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 389 ft / 119 m | ||||||||||
Coordinates | 39°04′41″N 077°33′27″W / 39.07806°N 77.55750°W | ||||||||||
Website | [1] | ||||||||||
Map | |||||||||||
Location of airport in Virginia / United States | |||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||
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Statistics (2006) | |||||||||||
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Source: Federal Aviation Administration
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Aircraft operations | 96,878 |
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Based aircraft | 184 |
Leesburg Executive Airport at Godfrey Field (ICAO: KJYO, FAA LID: JYO) is a town-owned public-use airport located three nautical miles (6 km) south of the central business district of Leesburg, a town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States.
It is a busy general aviation airport in the Washington, D.C. area, and a reliever for nearby Washington Dulles International Airport.
Leesburg Executive Airport was built in 1963 to replace an earlier grass field on the eastern edge of the town, which was owned & used by radio personality Arthur Godfrey for his private DC-3 aircraft. Godfrey sold the field and shared a portion of the funds with the Town of Leesburg, which used the proceeds to help fund a new airport 3 miles south of town. The town used matching funds from the FAA. Originally named Godfrey Field, it is now known as Leesburg Executive Airport at Godfrey Field.
In 1986, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) consolidated its 308 Flight Service Stations into 61 'automated' stations (to be known as "AFSS"). The Flight Service Station at Leesburg was scheduled to close, but local lobbying convinced the FAA to rent space from the town and locate an AFSS at the airport. In 1993, when the airport fixed-base operator went bankrupt, the Town of Leesburg assumed direct operation of airport services, lengthening the runway twice to an eventual length of 5,500 feet (1,700 m) to support business jets and adding a localizer approach and automated weather observation equipment to support all-weather operations.