Buckingham Field
6 January 1999
IATA: none – ICAO: none – FAA LID: FL59
Summary
Airport type		Privately-owned
Owner		Lee County Mosquito Control District
Location		Lee County, near Fort Myers, Florida
Elevation AMSL		23 ft / 7 m
Coordinates		26°38′36″N 081°42′37″W / 26.64333°N 81.71028°W / 26.64333; -81.71028
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	ft	m
14/32	4,046	1,233	Concrete
6/24	2,726	831	Concrete
Source: Federal Aviation Administration

Buckingham Army Airfield, 14 April 1945

A formation of four planes wing their way along the Caloosahatchee River above east Fort Myers to the Buckingham Flexible Gunnery School's range over the Gulf of Mexico (ca 1945). The plane on the right carries the tow target. The gunners shoot from the rear seat of the planes.

Buckingham Field (FAA LID: FL59) is a private-use airport located seven nautical miles (13 km) east of the central business district of Fort Myers, in Lee County, Florida, United States. It is privately owned by the Lee County Mosquito Control District.

History

Wartime use

Originally constructed as Buckingham Army Airfield, the airfield had its origins as an aircraft gunner training base to train the aerial gunners who would defend bombers. The airfield was constructed starting in 1942 at a cost of $10 million on a total of 7,000 acres (28 km) of swamp land, which had to be drained with an extensive system of newly constructed canals. The airfield originally had three 5,000' runways, with 2 oval tracks of the Ground Moving Target Range, located to the west of the airfield, as well as nearby skeet ranges & trap ranges.

Buckingham Field was initially assigned to the AAF Southeast Training Center as a flexible gunnery school. Training was conducted in both air-to-air & air-to-surface gunnery. The air-to-air training used a variety of aircraft, including AT-6 Texans, BT-13 Valiants, P-63 Kingcobras, B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators. For ground-based training, a number of facilities were available, including the moving target ranges and a number of gunnery simulators.

On 8 January 1943, the War Department constituted and activated the 75th Flying Training Wing (Flexible Gunnery) at Buckingham and assigned it to the AAF Eastern Flying Training Command.

Most of the B-24s that flew the oil refinery raids over Ploesti, Romania came from Buckingham. When the mission idea came down, most of the B-24 crews were from Buckingham as they were experienced, with their gunners in the middle of frangible bullet training. The training program consisted of having P-39 and other aircraft outfitted with an extra layer of armor plating so that gunners could fire the bullets right at the aircraft instead of at tow targets.

At its peak, Buckingham Field base housed 16,000 men. By the end of World War II the airfield consisted of a total of six concrete runways (the largest was 5,800' long), along with a large concrete ramp area. The airfield and its target ranges covered a total of 65,723 acres (265.97 km), and had approximately 700 buildings.

Buckingham closed in 1945, after graduating almost 48,000 aerial gunners.

Postwar Civil use

After the war, the barracks at Buckingham were briefly used as the Edison College, but this closed in 1948. Most of the buildings of the original base were subsequently removed over time.

A street grid for a planned housing development named Lehigh Acres was eventually built over the area formerly occupied by Buckingham's runways in the 1950s. By the mid-1970s, the runways were gone except for the concrete ends. The 1978 Miami Sectional Chart depicted three paved portions of Buckingham's former ramp as the runways of the Lehigh Acres West private airfield. The longest runway was depicted as 3,000'.

The street grid built over the location of the former runways remained undeveloped for some period of time, before eventually being partially filled in with houses, it remains, however, about 90% unoccupied.

By 2000, the northern portion of the ramp was to used as a runway, being operated as a private field, Buckingham Field Airport, by the Lee County Mosquito/Hyacinth Control District, which operates a fleet of 23 aircraft & helicopters (including C-47s & several rare C-117 Super Dakotas).

Portions of the ramp area are also used for automobile racing.

Facilities

Buckingham Field has two concrete paved runways: 14/32 measuring 4,046 x 400 ft (1,233 x 122 m) and 6/24 measuring 2,726 x 400 ft (831 x 122 m).

Runway Information

Runway 06/24

Runway 14/32

Radio Navigation Aids

Remarks

• UNDESIGNATED AREAS USED AS HELIPAD.
• DITCH 50' OFF WEST END OF RWY 06/24
• ALL RYS TOTAL WIDTH 400 FT; TKOF/LNDG AREA 75 FT WIDE.
• VFR, PRIVATE USE.

Based Aircraft

Buckingham Field Airport  

Address: Lee County, FL

Tel: 941-694-2174

Images and information placed above are from
http://www.airport-data.com/airport/FL59/

We thank them for the data!

General Info
Country	United States
State	FLORIDA
FAA ID	FL59
Latitude	26-38-36.258N
Longitude	081-42-37.295W
Elevation	23 feet
Near City	FORT MYERS

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