Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
McCall Municipal Airport is a city-owned, public-use general aviation field in the mountains of west-central Idaho, serving the resort town of McCall as a base for backcountry flying and government firefighting aviation. Its single asphalt runway, aligned north-south, sits at just over 5,000 feet elevation, making performance planning important for visiting pilots. The field is also home to a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper base and associated aerial firefighting operations.
McCall Municipal Airport is a city-owned public-use airport serving McCall, Idaho, a lake resort town in the mountains of the western United States. It is classed by the FAA as a general aviation facility and is notable for hosting one of the nation's U.S. Forest Service smokejumper bases alongside its general aviation traffic. For a sim pilot, McCall offers a taste of mountain-airport flying, with a single runway set among forested high terrain close to Payette Lake, and a mix of light singles, backcountry types and turbine aircraft using the field.
McCall lies in west-central Idaho, within the Payette National Forest, with the airport situated close to the shore of Payette Lake; the north end of the runway is roughly a mile south of the lake. The field serves the town of McCall and the surrounding mountain and wilderness terrain, which includes numerous backcountry airstrips popular with visiting pilots.
McCall has one physical runway, 16/34, with a hard surface measuring 6,101 feet in length. The runway is lit and there is no ILS approach available.
McCall has an ASOS on 119.925 MHz. Traffic is handled on the CTAF/UNICOM frequency of 122.8 MHz. Salt Lake City Center can be reached on 128.05 MHz, and Boise Radio is available on 122.35 MHz. There is no ILS, but there are two published GPS-based (RNAV) instrument approaches, one for each runway direction.
Payette Lake lies just north of the airport, close to the northern end of runway 16/34, and provides a prominent landmark for pilots inbound to the field. The town of McCall itself, on the lake, sits close to the airport and helps with visual orientation on arrival.
McCall Municipal Airport has long been included in the FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems as a general aviation facility. The airport was the scene of a fatal accident on 2 May 2008, when two single-engine aircraft collided on final approach to runway 34 and crashed, resulting in three deaths. The city-owned field has also served for many years as the site of a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper base, one of seven such bases in the country, reflecting the airport's long-standing role in wildland firefighting operations in the surrounding forests.
McCall Municipal Airport today serves a diverse civil and government aviation market, with aircraft ranging from light general aviation types to larger turbine aircraft and business jets. Backcountry favourites such as the Cessna 185 and Piper Super Cub are commonly seen, reflecting the airport's role as a gateway to Idaho's backcountry airstrips. The airport hosts U.S. Forest Service operations including the Smokejumper Base, a fixed-wing Fire Bomber Base, and a Helibase, but does not offer scheduled commercial air service. Two published GPS-based instrument approaches support all-weather arrivals and departures at this mountain airport.