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Wendover Airport lies on the Utah-Nevada border, a mile or so southeast of the town of Wendover itself, on the site of the former Wendover Army Air Field. It retains two long, lit hard-surfaced runways and much of its Second World War infrastructure, including the hangar once used to modify the Enola Gay, making it a striking destination for the history-minded VFR pilot. It is an uncontrolled field today, with light general aviation and occasional military use.
Wendover Airport, sitting at 4,229 feet elevation on the western edge of Tooele County, Utah, is a county-owned public-use airfield built on the footprint of the wartime Wendover Army Air Field. Its two generously long, lit asphalt runways are a legacy of its heavy bomber training past, and the field still carries dozens of original World War II buildings alongside its modern general aviation traffic, giving it real character for a visiting pilot with an interest in aviation history.
The airport is located about one nautical mile southeast of the central business district of Wendover, Utah, close to the state line with Nevada, near the twin community of West Wendover. It is an uncontrolled airport with no operating control tower, and there is no published information here on any surrounding controlled airspace.
Wendover has two physical runways, both hard-surfaced and lit. Runway 08/26 is 9,983 feet long, and runway 12/30 is 7,987 feet long, giving the field an unusually generous length pairing for a facility of its size, reflecting its heavy bomber training origins.
The field broadcasts an AWOS-3 automated weather observation on 135.075 MHz. A remote radio outlet associated with Cedar City is listed on 112.3 MHz. CTAF/UNICOM is on 122.8 MHz, which pilots should use for self-announcing arrivals, departures and traffic advisories at this uncontrolled field. There is no ILS approach at Wendover.
Wendover is an uncontrolled airport with no control tower, so standard see-and-avoid procedures apply, with pilots using CTAF/UNICOM on 122.8 MHz to make position calls and coordinate with other traffic in the pattern.
The airfield sits just southeast of the town of Wendover and its Nevada twin, West Wendover, on the flat salt-flat terrain characteristic of this stretch of the Utah-Nevada border, with the built-up area and casino development of West Wendover providing an obvious landmark for pilots inbound from the east or west.
The airport occupies the site of the former Wendover Air Force Base, which largely ceased military operations in the mid-1960s. The base was declared surplus in 1976, and on 16 June of that year most of the field, including its water system, was handed over to the city of Wendover as a municipal airport; ownership later passed to Tooele County in the late 1990s. From 1980 the 4440th Tactical Fighter Training Group, associated with Red Flag exercises out of Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, used the field for training until operations were discontinued after 1986. The site retains three paved runways, numerous ramps, taxiways and dispersal pads, all of its original hangars including the hangar associated with the Enola Gay B-29, and around 75 other World War II-era buildings. A non-profit group, Historic Wendover Airfield, works to restore these historic elements. Several flying scenes for the 1997 film Con Air were shot here using a Fairchild C-123K Provider, and the airport received a $1.2 million FAA grant in September 2002 to resurface its runways.
Wendover remains an uncontrolled, county-owned public-use airport with no air traffic control tower. Recent FAA figures cited by Wikipedia show around 4,586 aircraft operations a year, the large majority general aviation with a smaller proportion of military movements, and three aircraft based at the field. Charter passenger service operated by Swift Air, which had used Boeing 737 aircraft to bring visitors to local casinos, ceased after the 2020 downturn and had not resumed as of 2023, leaving the passenger terminal unused. The historic World War II hangars and buildings, including the one linked to the Enola Gay, still stand on the airfield and are the focus of ongoing preservation work by the Historic Wendover Airfield group.
