Palmietfontein Airport
| Palmietfontein Airport | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Summary | |||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Johannesburg, South Africa | ||||||||||||||||||
| Opened | 1940s | ||||||||||||||||||
| Closed | 1950s | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 5,107 ft / 1,557 m | ||||||||||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||||||||||
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Palmietfontein Airport was an airport situated to the south of Johannesburg (Katlehong), South Africa, in the mid-1940s to early 1950s.
Coordinates: 26°20′12″S 28°08′48″E / 26.33667°S 28.14667°E
Palmietfontein Airport was a wartime air force base which was converted to a temporary airport to serve Johannesburg whilst the new airport, Jan Smuts Airport (now OR Tambo International Airport), was being built. The airport serving Johannesburg at the time, Rand Airport, was unable to accommodate the size of aircraft to be operated on a new service to Great Britain. In 1948, South African Airways moved its terminal to Palmietfontein Airport.
Several historical flights terminated at Palmietfontein Airport. A Qantas Airways Avro Lancastrian completed an unprecedented flight from Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport in Australia to Palmietfontein, landing on 20 November 1948 at 15h15, and having been in the air a total of 41 hours and 52 minutes at an average speed of 210 mph (180 kn; 340 km/h). En-route stops were made at Perth, Cocos Islands and Mauritius. The objective, to establish viable air links between South Africa and Australia, had been accomplished. The world’s first passenger jet service took place on 3 May 1952 when a BOAC de Havilland Comet 1 landed at Palmietfontein on a flight from the UK.
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