Departure
92%
vs 95% ▼ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
F. D. Roosevelt Airport is the sole airfield on the Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius, a short single-runway strip near Oranjestad that has served the island since 1946. Named for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in recognition of the island's historic ties to the United States, it remains a small, uncontrolled field handling light turboprops and island-hopper traffic, making it an interesting short-field exercise for the sim pilot with the dormant volcano of The Quill dominating the approach.
F. D. Roosevelt Airport serves Oranjestad and the wider island of Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean Netherlands. It is owned and operated by the Island Government of Sint Eustatius and functions as the community's only air link, handling light turboprops such as the DHC-6 Twin Otter and, more recently, the ATR 42. For the simulator pilot it offers a compact, single-runway Caribbean approach overlooked by the dormant volcano The Quill, with no control tower and only basic flight information service.
The airfield lies on Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean Netherlands, close to the town of Oranjestad which it serves. It sits at an elevation of 115 feet, at coordinates 17.4965 N, 62.9795 W. There is no control tower in operation, and the field is served by a flight information service rather than air traffic control, indicating uncontrolled airspace typical of the smaller Dutch Caribbean islands.
The airfield has a single physical runway, 06/24, of 4269 feet, with a hard surface and runway lighting. There is no ILS. A proposed extension of around 1000 feet has been discussed locally to allow larger aircraft to operate, though this had not been implemented as of the most recent reporting.
Pilots should expect to use INFO on 118.1 MHz for flight information service; there is no air traffic control tower, and no navaids or instrument approaches are noted for the field.
The Quill, the island's dormant volcano, dominates the skyline and forms a prominent landmark for locating the airfield and the town of Oranjestad, which lies close by.
The airfield opened in 1946 as Golden Rock Airport and was later renamed in honour of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had Dutch ancestry. In 1939 Roosevelt presented Sint Eustatius with a plaque commemorating the 'First Salute', the first official salute given to the flag of the newly independent United States in 1776. Members of the Roosevelt family had lived on the island in the eighteenth century and held property there.
The airport remains built to support small aircraft, with a small single-storey terminal building handling passengers, baggage and customs, and a small apron for light aircraft; there is no operating control tower despite a tower structure being attached to the terminal. As of 2023 the largest aircraft type using the field was the ATR 42, with the DHC-6 Twin Otter, Britten-Norman Islander and Cessna 208 Caravan also able to operate. Scheduled service has been provided by Winair, principally linking the island with Saba, alongside charter operators serving nearby islands such as Saint Kitts, Nevis, Saint Croix, Sint Maarten and the ABC islands.