Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Friedman Memorial Airport serves the resort towns of Sun Valley and Ketchum from a single runway set in a high mountain valley just outside Hailey, Idaho. Operated by the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority, it combines scheduled airline service with a busy general aviation base, all squeezed into a narrow valley floor at over 5,000 feet elevation. For the visiting VFR pilot it is a distinctive high-altitude, mountain-bound field with terrain awareness very much part of the arrival and departure planning.
Friedman Memorial Airport (KSUN) lies close to Hailey, Idaho, and is the gateway airport for the nearby resort communities of Sun Valley and Ketchum in the Wood River Valley. It is a city-owned, public-use field operated by the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority under a joint powers agreement between the City of Hailey and Blaine County, and it mixes scheduled regional airline flights with a substantial general aviation population. Its setting in a narrow mountain valley beneath the Sawtooth Mountains, combined with a single long runway, makes it a field of real interest to sim pilots wanting a mountain-airport challenge.
The airport sits one nautical mile southeast of the central business district of Hailey, the county seat of Blaine County, Idaho, in a rugged valley at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountains. Air traffic in the area is worked by Hailey Tower on frequency 125.6 MHz, with overlying enroute control provided by Salt Lake City Center on 118.05 MHz.
Friedman Memorial has a single physical runway, 13/31, surfaced in hard-standing material and lit. Declared landing distances differ significantly between the two directions: runway 31 offers 7,543 feet while runway 13 offers 5,837 feet, a difference pilots should note when planning performance calculations for either direction. Field elevation is 5,285 feet, making this a genuine high-altitude airport with corresponding effects on true airspeed, climb performance and density altitude, especially in the warmer months.
Hailey Tower operates on 125.6 MHz, which also serves as the CTAF. Ground movements are handled on 121.7 MHz, and Boise Radio can be reached on 122.4 MHz. ATIS and AWOS information is broadcast on 128.225 MHz. UNICOM is available on 122.95 MHz, and Salt Lake City Center provides enroute radar service on 118.05 MHz. The airport has no ILS, so instrument approaches rely on other procedures and careful attention to the surrounding terrain.
The airport lies one nautical mile southeast of Hailey's central business district, with the town itself a useful visual reference on approach from the northwest. The field is set beneath the Sawtooth Mountains, and pilots should be alert to the surrounding high terrain when navigating visually into the valley. Highway 75, which runs close to the airport, has itself featured in the field's aviation history as an emergency landing site.
The land for the airport was donated to the City of Hailey by Leon and Lucile Friedman in 1931, with the field named in memory of their father, Simon M. Friedman, a local merchant and rancher who served as mayor of Hailey from 1909 to 1913. Historic photographs suggest the site had already seen aviation use as early as 1916, and the airport was officially recognised in 1932. Scheduled commercial service began in the late summer of 1960 when West Coast Airlines introduced Douglas DC-3 and Piper Navajo flights, a lineage that continued through Air West and, later, Hughes Airwest, though the latter never actually served Hailey itself. Through the 1970s and 1980s the airport saw a succession of regional operators including Sun Valley Airlines, Key Airlines, Gem State Airlines, Mountain West Airlines, Golden Gate Airlines, Scenic Airlines and Air Idaho, the latter flying de Havilland Heron four-engine commuter aircraft. Seasonal jet service arrived with Horizon Air's Fokker F28 flights to San Francisco and Seattle and America West's Boeing 737-300 flights to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Boise, Las Vegas and San Jose, the 737 being the largest aircraft ever to serve Sun Valley on a scheduled basis. Transwestern Airlines served the field for two years until a non-fatal accident near Hailey in 1983, when a flight made an emergency landing attempt on Highway 75; the route was subsequently taken over by Horizon Air. Delta Connection and United Express introduced Canadair CRJ-700 regional jet service in 2013 and 2014 respectively, following decades in which SkyWest Airlines had operated Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia turboprops on behalf of Delta Connection.
Friedman Memorial remains the busiest general aviation and regional airline airport in the Wood River Valley, serving as the principal air link to Sun Valley and Ketchum. Delta Air Lines has long been the dominant scheduled carrier, now flying Embraer 175 jets year-round to Salt Lake City via Delta Connection, while United Express operates seasonal winter service, historically to San Francisco, using SkyWest-operated CRJ-700 regional jets. Alaska Airlines has typically added around 100 days of winter-season service to Los Angeles. The single runway and its parallel taxiway connect to both a fixed-base operator and the passenger terminal at opposite ends of the field, requiring careful coordination of air and ground movements. The airport has held FAA Part 139 certification and has recently recorded a discrepancy-free annual inspection. Given the field's mountain setting and traffic mix of piston, turboprop and regional jet operations, pilots planning a flight here, whether in real life or simulation, should expect a busy but well-run airport that is unusually resilient to winter weather for its high-altitude location.