BERNARDS TOWNSHIP — A 1981 U.S. Geological Survey map shows that Somerset Hills Airport was located in the area between Lord Stirling Road and Maple Avenue in Basking Ridge, Bernards Township. This undated photo from the airfield shows a Waco UPF7 acrobatics training plane in front of the facility’s lone hangar.
Airfields-freeman.com
reports that the airport was dedicated on Oct. 23, 1932, with three
grass runways, and became an Army Air Corps flight training facility
from 1941 through 1945. Following World War II, it returned to being a
facility serving light recreational and business aircraft, with one
runway being paved sometime in the late 1960s.
As the areas near the airport were developed for residential and
business use, the facility’s days became numbered. Writing on the
website, Dennis Sandow notes, “The legal issues started when a pilot
landed short and hard on the athletic field of the high school about
half mile west of the runway about 1980.”
In addition, a 1986 report by the New Jersey General Aviation Study
Commission’s Subcommittee on Airport Closings showed the airport’s taxes
had risen 500 percent in its last 16 years of operation. By 1983, the
airport was not listed as “active” by national flight guides, and the
1986 USGS map listed it as “inactive.”
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