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Solberg-Hunterdon Airport (N51) is a family-run general aviation field in Readington Township, New Jersey, founded in 1941 by Norwegian aviation pioneer Thor Solberg. It offers three runway options for visiting VFR pilots, including a lit hard-surface strip, and is well known among balloonists and light aircraft owners in the region southwest of New York City.
Solberg-Hunterdon Airport is a privately owned, public-use general aviation airport in Readington Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, operated by the Solberg Aviation Company under the Solberg and Nagle families. It was established in 1941 by Thor Solberg, a Norwegian-born aviation pioneer, and remains a family concern to this day, run by his descendants. For a simulator pilot, it is an interesting rural strip offering a mix of grass and hard-surfaced runways, a resident VOR, and a strong historical connection to early transatlantic aviation, as well as its long association with hot-air ballooning.
The airfield lies in Readington Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, roughly 30 miles southwest of New York City and about 4 miles south of Interstate 78. It sits close to Whitehouse Station. Pilots should note that the airport is within a 10-mile radius of the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and is therefore subject to FAA temporary flight restrictions whenever the President is in residence there, so a NOTAM check before flight is advisable.
Solberg-Hunterdon has three physical runway pairs. Runway 13/31 is 3,371 ft long with a grass surface. Runway 04/22 is 2,976 ft long, has a hard surface, and is lit. Runway 10/28 is 2,403 ft long with a grass surface. There is no ILS at the field.
The airport uses a common CTAF/UNICOM frequency of 122.800 MHz for both traffic advisories and unicom services; there is no control tower. A VOR/DME, identified SBJ, is located on the airfield itself and can be tuned on 112.90 for navigation to and from the field.
There is no control tower at Solberg-Hunterdon, so traffic self-announces on the CTAF of 122.800 MHz. Left-hand traffic patterns are used for both the 04/22 and 13/31 runways. Runway lighting on 04/22 operates from sunset to sunrise (SS-SR), supporting arrivals and departures outside daylight hours.
Inbound pilots can use Interstate 78, roughly 4 miles to the north, and the town of Whitehouse Station as general orientation points before locating the airfield's runways amid the surrounding farmland of Readington Township. The nearby Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, within 10 miles, is also a useful landmark, though pilots must remain alert to any associated temporary flight restrictions.
Solberg Airport was founded in 1941 by Thor Solberg, a Norwegian-born aviator who had earned his pilot's certificate in Germany before emigrating to the United States in the 1920s. He became notable for making the first flight from the United States to Norway, departing Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field on 18 July 1935 in a Loening C-2C Air Yacht named the Leif Erikson, accompanied by radio operator Paul C. Oscanyon, with stops in Labrador, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands before reaching Norway on 16 August. Solberg was inducted into the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame in 1985, and Norway's oldest airport, Jarlsberg, is dedicated to his memory. His son, Thor Solberg Jr., continued the family's stewardship of the airport until his death on 16 December 2017, after which two generations of Solberg's heirs, including his children Lorraine Solberg and Suzy Solberg Nagle, have continued to run it. The airport has also long been associated with the New Jersey Festival of Ballooning, which celebrated its 40th anniversary there in 2023 after growing into one of the largest summertime hot air balloon and music festivals in North America, though the event was subsequently cancelled in 2024 and 2025.
Solberg-Hunterdon remains an active general aviation airport with 47 based aircraft, predominantly single-engine types, alongside a handful of multi-engine aircraft, one helicopter and two gliders. The field handles a steady flow of local and transient light aircraft traffic. On-field services include 100LL fuel, major airframe and powerplant repair, hangar and tie-down storage, flight instruction, aircraft rental and sales. There is no control tower, and pilots operate under standard uncontrolled-field procedures using the shared CTAF/UNICOM frequency.n
