Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport Ryan Field | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Summary | |||||||||||||||||||
| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||||||||||
| Owner | City of Baton Rouge/Parish of East Baton Rouge | ||||||||||||||||||
| Operator | Baton Rouge Airport Authority | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serves | Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 70 ft / 21 m | ||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 30°31′58″N 091°09′00″W / 30.53278°N 91.15000°W | ||||||||||||||||||
| Website | www | ||||||||||||||||||
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Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (IATA: BTR, ICAO: KBTR, FAA LID: BTR), also known as Ryan Field, is a public use airport located four miles (7 km) north of the central business district of Baton Rouge, a city in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, United States.[1]
The airport was originally Harding Field during World War II and was used by the United States Army Air Forces Technical Service Command as a maintenance and supply base. Its uses also included training pilots to fly P-47 Thunderbolts.[2] One of the Thunderbolt pilots trained at Harding was Quentin Aanenson, who survived the war, and in 2007 appeared in Ken Burns' The War, a PBS film about World War II. Training was dangerous, The War noting that "Five members of Aanenson's group of 40 trainees died before they got a chance to go overseas".
Many other aircraft were used at Harding, including P-40 Warhawks, P-39 Airacobras, A-36 Apaches, and B-26 Marauders.[3]
Today, other than the runways, virtually no traces remain of the military installation.
- ^ a b FAA Airport Form 5010 for BTR PDF, effective 12-30-2021.
- ^ see: "The War: a Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick", Episode 3 "A Deadly Calling" at 33 minutes 10 secs. Pilot Quentin Aanenson says: "I wanted to fly fighters . . . I was sent to Harding Field at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That's where they had the P-47 Thunderbolt"
- ^ see "Heroes of Harding Field", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_5GttkrexM, based on the book of the same name by William A. Spedale (self-published, 2000: Amazon.com)