Departure
76%
vs 95% ▼ 19
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Twin Pine Airport was a small privately owned grass airstrip in Hopewell Township, New Jersey, that served the Pennington area for over six decades before its closure in 2008. Once frequented by Charles Lindbergh and home to a local EAA chapter, the field is now preserved in flight-simulation scenery as a snapshot of a vanished slice of New Jersey general aviation history.
Twin Pine Airport, originally known as Pennington Airport, was a privately owned, public-use grass airfield serving Pennington, New Jersey. It is of interest to simulator pilots chiefly as a piece of aviation history rather than as an active destination: the field closed permanently in 2008 and its runway has since been redeveloped as athletic fields, making a virtual visit one of the few ways to experience the strip as it once was.
The airfield sat on Pennington-Lawrenceville Road roughly three miles southeast of the central business district of Pennington, within Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey. It occupied a 51 to 52 acre site on the northwest side of the intersection of Lawrenceville-Pennington Road and Federal City Road.
Twin Pine had a single grass runway aligned 05/23, 2,488 feet in length.
The field was easily identified by its position at the intersection of Lawrenceville-Pennington Road and Federal City Road, with its hangar and airport buildings sited along Lawrenceville-Pennington Road. Today the same ground is occupied by the Twin Pines Athletic Complex, whose soccer fields mark the former airfield site.
Established in 1945 as Pennington Airport, the field was later renamed Twin Pine Airport and was owned by William "Bill" Weasner and his wife Jean from 1956 onward. It became a well-known local grass strip, hosting fly-ins through the 1960s and serving as home to aircraft including a Boeing Stearman known as the "Red Baron," which gave rides from the airstrip. Charles Lindbergh was said to have frequented the airport during the years he lived nearby at Highfields. EAA Chapter 176 was based at the field. In the mid-2000s a county revaluation more than tripled the airport's property tax assessment, driving a sharp rise in its annual tax bill and prompting the surrounding municipalities of Hopewell Township, Lawrence Township, Hopewell Borough, and Pennington Borough to seek grant funding to purchase the land for conversion to athletic fields. The airport held its official closing ceremony on April 6, 2008, after which the Weasners sold the property to the townships. Some aircraft, including a Cessna 150, a Varga Kachina, a Citabria, a Mooney M20C, and a Cessna 310, remained on site for a time after closure. The last hangar, once used by Lindbergh, was demolished in September 2015, and a museum on the airport's history was reportedly planned.
Twin Pine Airport no longer exists as an operating aerodrome. The site was redeveloped into the Twin Pines Athletic Complex, a set of artificial turf soccer fields, and all airport structures, including the last surviving hangar, had been demolished by September 2015. There is no active flying activity, fuel, or air traffic service at the former field.