Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport
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.
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 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Baton Rouge, Louisiana | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 70 ft / 21 m | ||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 30°31′58″N 091°09′00″W | ||||||||||||||||||
| Website | www | ||||||||||||||||||
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FAA airport diagram | |||||||||||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Statistics (2018) | |||||||||||||||||||
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Source: Federal Aviation Administration | |||||||||||||||||||
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. 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.
Today, other than the runways, virtually no traces remain of the military installation.