Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Purdue University Airport (KLAF) lies in West Lafayette, Indiana, just southwest of Lafayette's city centre, and holds the distinction of being the first university-owned airport in the United States. Owned and operated by Purdue University, it combines a busy collegiate flight-training operation with scheduled airline service to Chicago O'Hare, making it one of the busier general aviation fields in the state.
Purdue University Airport is a public-use field owned by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. It was the first university-owned airport in the country and remains home to Purdue's well-known flight school, which trains pilots from pre-solo through Air Transport Pilot level. The field also hosts scheduled United Express service to Chicago O'Hare, giving it a mix of airline, training and general aviation traffic that makes it a genuinely busy and interesting destination for a visiting VFR pilot.
The airport sits in Tippecanoe County, about two nautical miles southwest of the central business district of Lafayette, Indiana, on the West Lafayette side of the Wabash River. It is served by an air traffic control tower (Lafayette Tower) and falls under the oversight of Chicago Center. The Federal Aviation Administration describes the mix of flight-school traffic and varying pilot experience levels as creating a complex operating environment for arriving and departing aircraft.
Purdue University Airport has two physical runways. Runway 10/28 is the longer of the pair at 6,580 feet, hard-surfaced and lit, with an ILS serving runway 10. Runway 05/23 is shorter, hard-surfaced and lit, measuring 4,228 feet in the 05 direction and 3,905 feet in the 23 direction.
Lafayette Tower operates on 119.6 MHz, which also serves as the CTAF. Ground control is on 121.9 MHz, and ATIS is broadcast on 127.75 MHz. UNICOM is available on 122.95 MHz. A remote radio outlet on 122.2 MHz is associated with Terre Haute Radio, and an additional frequency of 123.85 MHz is listed for Grissom, doubling as a Chicago Center frequency. Runway 10 is equipped with an ILS for instrument approaches.
Purdue Aviation's flight school and Lafayette's control tower have established a number of local reporting points to help manage the volume and mix of training and transient traffic. Pilots should be aware that Taxiway C1, the primary entrance and exit for the Purdue Aviation FBO ramp, sits in a blind spot from the tower cab due to a line-of-sight obstruction caused by a hangar, so extra vigilance is warranted when operating in that area.
Purdue University Airport traces its origins to 1930, when inventor-industrialist David E. Ross, one of the namesakes of Purdue's Ross-Ade Stadium, donated land for an aeronautical education and research facility. The airfield was designated a federal emergency landing strip on 1 November 1930, and runway 5/23 was paved later in that decade. The airport is closely associated with Amelia Earhart, who as an adjunct faculty member at Purdue prepared her Lockheed Model 10 Electra, purchased for her by the Purdue Research Foundation, in Hangar 1 ahead of her attempted round-the-world flight; that bay still stands within what is now Niswonger Hall of Aviation Technology and continues to be used for maintenance training. During the Second World War hundreds of US Army, Navy and War Training Service personnel trained at the field, alongside commercial pilots from Latin America, and in 1955 it became home to the first Reserve Officers' Training Corps flight training program. Runway 10/28 and a larger hangar were added in the early 1960s to support the Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction, which used two DC-6 aircraft. From 1942 to 1971 Purdue operated its own airline from the field, first as the Purdue Aeronautics Corporation and later as Purdue Airlines, flying Douglas DC-3s, DC-6s and eventually three McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 jets; the airline also flew a DC-9 on behalf of Hugh Hefner as his private aircraft, the Big Bunny. Evergreen International Airlines briefly ran a cargo operation from the airport in the late 1970s using Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprops, and President Ronald Reagan visited aboard Air Force One on 9 April 1987. Scheduled airline service lapsed in 2004, after which the airport's focus shifted to university aviation programmes, before scheduled flights resumed in May 2024.
The airport remains home to Purdue University's nationally known flight school, offering instruction from pre-solo through Air Transport Pilot level, and continues to generate heavy training traffic alongside its general aviation and airline operations. United Express operates daily scheduled flights to Chicago O'Hare from the field. As of December 2020 the airport had 84 based aircraft, and it recorded 117,727 aircraft operations in 2019, reflecting its status as one of the busiest airports in Indiana after Indianapolis International.
