Lewistown Municipal Airport


Lewistown Municipal Airport is two miles southwest of Lewistown, in Fergus County, Montana. It is owned by the city and county.
Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 596 passenger boardings in calendar year 2008, 1,049 in 2009 and 704 in 2010. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 called it as a general aviation airport.
Scheduled air service temporarily ceased on March 8, 2008, when Big Sky Airlines ended operations in bankruptcy. Great Lakes Airlines was given USDOT approval to take over Essential Air Service and flights began in 2009. Service was provided under EAS contract by Silver Airways until July 2013. EAS subsidies were terminated on July 15, 2013 due to subsidy per passenger exceeding $1000, leaving Lewistown without scheduled air service.

History

Lewistown Army Airfield was built in 1942 as one of four training facilities for B-17 Flying Fortress crews and had a storage site for the top secret Norden Bombsight.
Lewistown was a satellite field for Great Falls Army Air Base. Squadrons were trained in navigation in addition to receiving gunnery and bombing practice. After training, the men were sent to the European front.
The airfield was in operation during a 12-month period between 1942 and 1943 and thereafter deactivated. The field was declared surplus in 1948 and has been a municipal airport ever since.
The original Frontier Airlines served the airport during the 1960s with direct Convair 580 turboprop flights to Denver, Salt Lake City and other destinations in the U.S. intermountain west. Frontier also operated nonstop Convair 580 service from Lewistown to Billings and Great Falls in Montana.

Facilities

The airport covers at an elevation of 4,170 feet. It has three asphalt runways: 8/26 is 6,100 by 100 feet, 3/21 is 5,600 by 100 feet, and 13/31 is 4,102 by 60 feet.
In 2011 the airport had 16,804 aircraft operations, average 46 per day: 81% general aviation, 15% air taxi, and 4% military. 58 aircraft were then based at the airport: 85% single-engine, 10% multi-engine, and 5% helicopter.