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Pope Field is a U.S. military airfield at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, jointly operated by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army and home to airlift, airborne training and special operations units. Equipped with a single long, ILS-served hard runway, it has served military aviation since 1919 and remains one of the busier installations in Air Mobility Command.
Pope Field is a long-established U.S. military airfield forming part of the Fort Bragg complex in North Carolina. It is operated by the U.S. Air Force under agreement with the U.S. Army and hosts airlift, special tactics and air support operations units. For a simulator pilot it is notable both for its single very long, ILS-equipped runway and for its deep history as a centre of American airborne and troop-carrier aviation.
The field lies about 12 miles northwest of the central business district of Fayetteville, in Spring Lake, Cumberland County, North Carolina, and forms part of the Fort Bragg military reservation. It is controlled by the Fort Bragg Garrison and Air Mobility Command as a military facility.
Pope Field has a single physical runway, 05/23, some 8,482 to 8,487 feet in length with a hard, lit surface. An instrument landing system serves the approach to runway 23.
Radio services at Pope Field include Air Traffic Control approach/departure via Fayetteville Approach on 125.175 MHz and 134.1 MHz (Command Post ACP), an ATIS on 132.3 MHz, clearance delivery on 27.58 MHz, ground on 124.55 MHz, tower on 135.025 MHz, and pilot-to-metro service on 34.46 MHz and 37.22 MHz.
The airfield's origins lie in Camp Bragg, an Army field artillery site established in 1918 and named for Confederate general Braxton Bragg; an aviation landing field was added the following year. The War Department officially established Pope Field in 1919, naming it for First Lieutenant Harley Halbert Pope, an Army aviator killed on 7 January 1919 when the Curtiss JN-4 Jenny he was flying crashed into the Cape Fear River while scouting landing fields for an airmail route. In its early years activity was so slow that pilots were reportedly asked to buzz the area to scare grazing deer away before landing. Through the 1920s the field supported observation aircraft and balloons used for aerial photography, terrain mapping, artillery spotting and forest-fire reporting. The 1930s brought major expansion, including runway lengthening, new lighting and construction of administrative buildings, some of which now form the Pope Air Force Base Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 along with Hangars 4 and 5. In 1935 Pope hosted 535 aircraft in a single day during large-scale East Coast air manoeuvres, and in 1940 paved runways replaced the earlier dirt strips. With the outbreak of the Second World War and the start of paratrooper training at Fort Bragg, Pope became closely tied to airborne operations, training air and ground crews alongside Army airborne units; in 1941 it hosted the first mass paratroop drop of more than 500 paratroopers in the western hemisphere, witnessed by Generals Marshall, McNair and Clark. In February 1942 A-20s based at Pope located and sank the first German submarine off the U.S. coast near Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout. The field became Pope Air Force Base with the creation of the U.S. Air Force on 18 September 1947, hosting the 10th Tactical Reconnaissance Group flying P/F-51 Mustangs and RF-51 photo-reconnaissance variants, followed by units training Forward Air Controllers for the Korean War. From 1954 the 464th Troop Carrier Wing, later redesignated tactical airlift, flew from Pope, supporting airborne training with Army forces and operations across Central America, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Personnel from Pope deployed in Vietnam, the Gulf War, the Iraq War and actions in the Congo, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama and Somalia. The base reverted to the name Pope Field in 2011 when it was absorbed into Fort Bragg, ending 64 years as an independent Air Force base.
Pope Field remains an active military airfield, administered by the U.S. Air Force via a memorandum of agreement and interservice support agreement with the U.S. Army as part of Fort Bragg. It is garrisoned by the 43rd Air Mobility Operations Group and hosts additional resident units including the 18th Air Support Operations Group, the 21st and 24th Special Tactics Squadrons, the 724th Special Tactics Group, the 427th Special Operations Squadron and the Air Force Combat Control School. It remains one of the busier installations within Air Mobility Command, and the Pope Air Force Base Historic District, together with Hangars 4 and 5, is preserved on the field as a listed historic site.
