Much chatter (a single message) this evening relating to Patterson Airport. There was another airport – one I have flown from – hinted at as well, but that was far less interesting.
Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport is a public airport located near the U.S. 90 highway outside of Patterson, Louisiana, United States with the airfield also serving Morgan City, Louisiana. The airport currently has no scheduled passenger service but is served by charter flights.
Which is all rather dull, but then, this:
It has two runways, one of them being water for seaplanes.
And I guess that if you are used to seeing seaplanes, then you’re used to seeing seaplane runways. But I’m used to neither of those things, so this is quite interesting (to me, at least).
And so I had a quick look on Google Maps, and to my surprise (maybe… I’m not really sure what I was actually expecting) the seaplane runway isn’t a demarcated bit of a local river or lake, but a purpose built… canal?
The airport has a long history of local flights, and obviously, the seaplane aspect must have been fairly important for them to go to the trouble of making a 1.4km long dedicated runway.
And as for Harry P(almerston) Williams? A prominent business man, born in Patterson in 1889 (great year), a plane racer, an airline owner, the mayor of the town, the president of the local bank, and a well-recognised socialite. His second wife, Helen, presided as acting Tsaritsa of the Mystic Court at the Duke of Alexis Tableau Ball in New Orleans, 1924. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds important.
He was killed – appropriately? – in an air crash in 1936. Not in a seaplane, incidentally.
The Orange Shitgibbon would likely have blamed the accident on diversity in air traffic control or something, but I doubt that was really a thing in Louisiana in the 1930s.
Or maybe even now.
Anyway: That’s PTN airport.
You live, you learn.