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Cape Sarichef Airport is a remote private-use gravel-turned-hard-surface strip on the windswept western tip of Unimak Island in Alaska's Aleutian chain, built to support a Cold War DEW Line radar station. Today it serves the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, and offers a genuinely isolated Alaskan bush-flying destination for the simulator pilot willing to navigate its short single runway and lack of published communications.
Cape Sarichef Airport sits at the far western end of Unimak Island, the outermost of the Aleutian Islands, in one of the most remote corners of Alaska. Originally built to support Cold War military operations, the field is now owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and managed as part of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. For the simulator pilot, it offers a stark, isolated bush-strip experience at the edge of the Bering Sea and North Pacific, far from any other aerodrome or controlled airspace.
The airfield lies on the western end of Unimak Island in the Aleutian Islands, a genuinely remote part of Alaska with no nearby towns or controlled airspace of note. It falls within the Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center's area, and the nearest flight service coverage is provided out of Cold Bay. There is no tower or other air traffic control presence at the field itself.
Cape Sarichef has a single physical runway, 16/34, measuring 3,560 feet with a hard surface. There is no instrument landing system available, and no parallel or crosswind runway.
No communications frequencies are published for Cape Sarichef Airport, and there is no air traffic control or advisory service on site. Pilots operating here should expect to self-announce on a suitable common frequency and rely on see-and-avoid procedures, as there are no navaids or instrument approaches associated with the field.
There are no published joining or circuit procedures for Cape Sarichef. As an unattended, private-use strip in an isolated location, arriving pilots should plan a standard overhead join and visual circuit, paying close attention to local terrain and weather given the exposed coastal setting.
There are no formally published visual reference points for the airfield. The most useful visual cues are the geography itself: the strip sits on the westernmost tip of Unimak Island, with the open waters of the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean converging around the cape, making the headland itself the primary landmark for locating the field.
Cape Sarichef takes its name from an 1816 survey by the Russian explorer Otto von Kotzebue, who named the headland after Admiral Gavril Sarychev of the Imperial Russian Navy. The airfield itself was built in 1958 to support Cape Sarichef Air Force Station, a Cold War United States Air Force Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line radar site, and it also served a United States Coast Guard LORAN station in the area. The radar station was operated by Detachment 3 of the 714th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, based at Cold Bay Air Force Station. Military use of the airfield ended when the radar station was inactivated in September 1969, and around 2000 the Air Force remediated the site, removing the abandoned military structures and returning the area to a natural state.
Cape Sarichef is now a private-use airfield owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and managed by the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. There is no control tower, wind indicator or segmented circle, and the field supports occasional refuge-related and administrative flying rather than any public training or club activity. As a private facility, prior permission is required before any visit.
