Business View Magazine | May 2019

117 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MAY 2019 THE ALLEN COUNTY A I RPORT no airports as we know them, thus relatively flat grassy meadows were used. Fuel was automobile gasoline carried in cans and strained through chamois skins in funnels to avoid engine-stopping vapor. In the summer of 1929, the first regularly scheduled air service for Allen County began. Mason Dixon Airline operated between Detroit and Cincinnati using Ford Airplanes. The Ford Tri-Motor cruised at nearly 90 miles per hour. “Newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt looked for some way to put many of the unemployed back to work and the WPA (Works Progress Administration) was created to do civic projects, paid for by the U.S. Government. Locally, it was decided to create an airport for Lima. In December of 1933, a site was selected on farmland east of Baty Road, near Allentown. The owner, farmer Scott Neely, leased about 136 acres of his farm at $1.00 per year to start the project. In 1940, the U.S. Government started the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) for college students to learn to fly, and this program provided a large quantity of young men who later entered military training programs. In June 1940, a Primary CPTP Program was started at Lima Airport. Lima native, Charles J. Parsons, a flight instructor for military pilots through the war years, took over the operation at Lima Airport in 1945. Fast forward to 1962 – that was the year our current airport terminal was built. It served the local community and surrounding areas of Lima. When the facility was built in the ‘60s, we had DC-3s providing regional airline service out of Allen County to Columbus, Cleveland, Detroit, and Dayton. “Today, our traffic mainly consists of corporate flights into Lima, charter traffic, freight, fuel stops, heavy lift construction helicopters, low level pipeline patrol, power line patrol, medical flights, and helicopter/organ surgical teams, as Lima supports two hospitals. We are on call, 24/7, for after-hours fueling of emergency service. Even the State Highway Patrol as an aviation department that lands in airplanes and helicopters for fuel, or to conduct missions with other local agencies. The military lands often in the summer - usually in Apache and Black Hawk helicopters and the like.” pictured above Local aviator, “Rollie” Thompson