Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Daytona Beach International Airport sits on Florida's east coast, three miles southwest of downtown Daytona Beach and immediately beside the Daytona International Speedway. A busy Class C field with a full ATC service, ILS approaches and a very long main runway, it combines scheduled airline traffic with a large general aviation and flight-training presence, most notably Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Daytona Beach International Airport is a Volusia County-owned field serving Daytona Beach, Florida, and lies immediately adjacent to the Daytona International Speedway. It is a genuinely mixed-use airport: airline services from Delta and American share the field with corporate operators and a substantial general aviation and flight-training community, most notably Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which is headquartered here. For a simulator pilot the field offers a good mix of a long instrument runway, controlled Class C airspace, and a strong sense of place thanks to the speedway sitting right off the airport boundary.
The airport lies within Class C airspace and is located about three miles southwest of the central business district of Daytona Beach, in Volusia County, Florida, immediately adjacent to the Daytona International Speedway. Daytona Beach Approach Control handles arrivals and departures and also provides separation for VFR aircraft flying practice instrument approaches, subject to traffic and workload. The airport has a complex taxiway layout, so pilots should study the airport diagram before taxiing.
The field has three physical runway pairs, all with hard, lit surfaces. Runway 07L/25R is the main instrument runway, published at 10,488 feet in the 25R direction and 9,800 feet in the 07L direction, and is equipped with ILS on both ends. Runway 16/34 is 6,002 feet long. Runway 07R/25L is the shortest strip, at 3,150 feet.
Air traffic services are provided from the tower and approach facilities. ATIS broadcasts on 132.875 MHz, and clearance delivery is available on 119.3 MHz. Ground movements are handled on 121.9 MHz and the tower operates on 120.7 MHz. Approach and departure control use 118.85 MHz and 123.9 MHz respectively, and UNICOM is available on 122.95 MHz. ILS approaches are available to runway 07L/25R.
As a Class C, tower-controlled airport, two-way radio contact must be established before entering the airspace, and pilots should expect to be sequenced by Daytona Beach Approach Control, which also handles VFR aircraft flying practice instrument approaches when workload permits. The taxiway system is complex, so careful reference to the airport diagram is recommended when taxiing to and from the runways.
The Daytona International Speedway, immediately adjacent to the airport, is the most prominent visual landmark for locating and orienting toward the field from the air.
Aviation at Daytona Beach began on the beach itself, whose smooth, hard sand made it a natural landing strip; Charles K. Hamilton flew the first flight there in 1906, and pilots including John Alexander Douglas McCurdy, Phillips Page and Ruth Law followed before beach flying ended in the winter of 1929-30. Operations then moved to Bethune Point on the Halifax River, where Eastern Air Transport and the short-lived Florida State Airways operated before the Depression and a fatal crash curtailed activity. In late 1930 a 740-acre site near what is now International Speedway Boulevard became the current airport, first known as Sholtz Field after Governor David Sholtz, and soon renamed Daytona Beach Municipal Airport. It opened with two gravel runways and grew through the 1930s to include four paved 4,000-foot runways capable of handling Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s, with Eastern Air Lines and later National Airlines providing scheduled service. During the Second World War the US Navy took over the field as Naval Air Station Daytona Beach, building extensive facilities and conducting advanced training for Naval Aviators and aircrewmen on aircraft such as the F6F Hellcat, F4U Corsair and SB2C Helldiver, supported by outlying fields at Spruce Creek, New Smyrna Beach, Ormond Beach and Bunnell. After the war the station was decommissioned and returned to civil use; many of its buildings later passed to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University following its move from Miami in 1965. A 1992 terminal expansion and the extension of two runways to 10,500 and 6,001 feet led to the airport being renamed Daytona Beach International Airport.
Daytona Beach International Airport remains a multi-use field, serving scheduled air carrier traffic alongside corporate and general aviation operators. It is home to numerous flight schools, including the Daytona Beach campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, making circuit and training traffic a regular feature of operations. The airport retains a six-gate domestic terminal and a separate international arrivals facility, and international charter jet operations are occasionally flown into the field.
