Departure
93%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Norwood Memorial Airport is a town-owned general aviation field two miles east of Norwood, Massachusetts, and about twelve air miles south-west of downtown Boston. Built during the Second World War as a Naval outlying landing field, it today supports flight training, corporate aviation and charter operations under a control tower, with an ILS approach to one of its two paired runways.
Norwood Memorial Airport is a public, town-owned aerodrome serving general aviation in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. It sits close to Boston Logan's airspace and combines a working history as a wartime naval training field with a present-day role hosting flight schools, corporate offices, maintenance facilities and charter operators, making it a useful and historically interesting destination for a visiting VFR pilot.
The airfield lies about two miles east of the town of Norwood, in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, roughly twelve air miles from downtown Boston. Its proximity to Boston Logan means arriving and departing traffic is coordinated with Boston Approach and Departure control. Field elevation is 46 feet and the reference coordinates are 42.1905 N, 71.1729 W.
Norwood has two physical runways. Runway 17/35 is a hard-surfaced, lit runway 3,999 feet long, with an instrument landing system serving runway 35. Runway 10/28 is also hard-surfaced; runway 28 is recorded at 3,769 feet and runway 10 at 3,000 feet, and runway 28 is lit.
The tower and common traffic frequency is 126 MHz. Ground movement is handled on 121.8 MHz, which also serves as clearance delivery. The airport ATIS broadcasts on 119.95 MHz. Boston Approach and Departure, covering arrivals and departures from the surrounding airspace, operate on 124.1 MHz. Runway 35 is served by an ILS approach.
Norwood operates with an air traffic control tower on 126 MHz, so pilots should expect to receive joining and circuit instructions from Norwood Tower rather than operate on a self-announce basis. Given the field's location close to Boston Logan's airspace, coordination with Boston Approach or Departure on 124.1 MHz should be anticipated for arriving and departing traffic. Funding for the control tower was briefly threatened by federal budget cuts in 2013 but was restored before any closure took effect.
Norwood Memorial Airport traces its origins to 1931. In 1941 the site was considered as Massachusetts' state auxiliary airport but the legislative committee on military affairs and public safety chose Bedford instead, owing to flooding that left the Norwood site under water for much of the previous spring. In 1942 a Norwood town meeting approved construction of an airport on 400 acres northeast of the Boston Metropolitan Airport, built at federal expense for national defence purposes. From 1942 to 1945 the field operated as a Naval Outlying Landing Field of Naval Air Station Squantum, and student pilots used its two 4,000-foot runways to gain flight experience. In 1946 the Department of War transferred the airport to the town of Norwood, which renamed it Norwood Memorial Airport in memory of local residents who died in the Second World War. That same year Wiggins Airways relocated from the Boston Metropolitan Airport in Canton to Norwood, establishing scheduled passenger, cargo and mail routes, a flight school, charter services and its parts and repair facilities. Wiggins remained at Norwood until 2001, when the economic effects of the September 11 attacks forced it to cease operations at the field. On 4 June 2007 a Mooney M-20-P crashed into woods south of the airport while on final approach, killing one person, and in March 2010 the airport was temporarily closed due to severe flooding.
Norwood Memorial Airport covers 688 acres and today hosts three flight schools alongside Flight Level Aviation, which operates as the field's FBO. Charter services are a regular feature of operations, and the field is home to a significant general aviation fleet including single and multi-engine aircraft, jets and helicopters. Cape Air has operated a seasonal scheduled service to Nantucket from the airport. The airport is described by its operator as running around the clock, and its position only twelve air miles from downtown Boston makes it a convenient general aviation alternative to the city's larger airports.