Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is the principal gateway to Northeast Ohio, sited in the Hopkins district some nine miles southwest of downtown Cleveland alongside NASA's Glenn Research Center. A large, tower-controlled international airport with a long aviation pedigree, it offers a busy full-service environment for the simulator pilot, complete with multiple long hard-surfaced runways and full ILS coverage.
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (KCLE) is a city-owned, internationally served airport in Cleveland, Ohio, and the primary air gateway for Greater Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. It is operated by the Cleveland Department of Port Control, which also runs the smaller downtown Burke Lakefront Airport. For a simulator pilot, KCLE offers a substantial commercial-airport experience: long parallel runways, full instrument approaches, and a layered radio environment typical of a major US Class B field, all set within a compact and historically significant airfield.
The airport lies in Cleveland's Hopkins neighbourhood, about 9 miles (14 km) southwest of Downtown Cleveland, and is immediately adjacent to NASA's Glenn Research Center. As a major international airport handling scheduled airline traffic, it sits within Class B controlled airspace, with the associated approach, departure and tower services described below.
Cleveland Hopkins has three physical runways. The main parallel pair, 06L/24R, is a hard-surfaced, lit runway of roughly 8,982 to 8,983 feet with ILS available at both ends. A second parallel hard-surfaced, lit runway, 06R/24L, runs between about 8,037 feet (06R) and 9,941 feet (24L), with ILS instrumentation. A shorter crosswind runway, 10/28, is 6,007 feet, hard-surfaced and lit, with an ILS serving the 28 threshold.
KCLE is a fully controlled tower field. Published frequencies include Approach on 119.625 MHz, Departure on 118.15 MHz, Tower on 120.9 MHz, Ground on 121.7 MHz, Clearance Delivery on 125.05 MHz, ATIS on 127.85 MHz, Ramp Control on 129.17 MHz, and UNICOM on 122.95 MHz, with an additional radio frequency listed on 122.2 MHz. The airport has ILS approaches available to several runway ends, supporting instrument arrivals in poor weather.
The airfield is readily identified from the air by its position immediately southwest of Downtown Cleveland and its adjacency to NASA's Glenn Research Center, a distinctive research campus abutting the airport boundary. The nearby Interstate 71 corridor also provides a useful ground reference for pilots orienting themselves toward the field.
Cleveland Hopkins was founded on 1 July 1925 as one of the first municipally owned airports in the United States, and it marked its 100th anniversary on 1 July 2025. The airfield was a pioneer of modern airport infrastructure: it hosted the first air traffic control tower in the world in 1929, the first airfield lighting system in 1930, and the first ground-to-air radio control system in 1939. It was also the first airport in North America directly connected to a rail transit line, in 1968, and it introduced the first two-level terminal design separating arrivals from departures. The airport was renamed in honour of its founder, former Cleveland City Manager William R. Hopkins, on his 82nd birthday in 1951. In the post-war decades the field served as United Airlines' easternmost domestic hub until United withdrew in the mid-1980s in favour of a new hub at Washington-Dulles. Continental Airlines subsequently built up a major hub operation at Cleveland, becoming the dominant carrier through the 1990s and 2000s, including launching the airport's first scheduled transatlantic service to London Gatwick in 1999. Following the 2010 merger of United and Continental, Cleveland briefly became a United hub again before United discontinued hub operations in 2014, retaining crew bases and maintenance facilities at the field.
Cleveland Hopkins remains Ohio's largest and busiest airport, offering non-stop service to dozens of destinations and continuing to serve as a crew and maintenance base for United Airlines as well as a crew base for Frontier Airlines. It is operated by the City of Cleveland's Department of Port Control. The airport's scale, controlled airspace and full ILS coverage make it a realistic and demanding destination for simulator pilots seeking an authentic major-airport operation.
