Downtown Island Airport invites you into a Knoxville story like no other | Know Your Knox
Many Knoxville residents have a vague sense there is an airport on an island in the Tennessee River just three miles from downtown, aptly named Downtown Island Airport.
Maybe you crane to look at it on a daily commute across the James White Parkway bridge, or you've viewed it from Island Home Park, just across the river.
Or maybe you've never even heard of it.
"A lot of people drive within a half mile of it every day, and they never know it's there," said Patrick Wilson, president of the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority, the public corporation that owns and operates McGhee Tyson Airport and its island sister.
And then there are the pilots of small planes who have experienced the beauty of taking off from an urban island surrounded by mountains. These are the people who know the incredible history of Dickinson Island, which has been a landing pad for planes in some fashion since 1919.
You don't have to be a pilot to enjoy Downtown Island Airport, Tennessee's third-busiest general aviation airport, where planes take off and land around 72,000 times each year.
You can walk right up and through the gate and sit in a rocking chair, passing the day watching planes and helicopters take off against a stunning skyline backdrop. Unlike a commercial airport, there are no security checkpoints or parking fees.
Bring a book or a dog if you like. There are freshly baked cookies in the community hangar. It's a way to pass the afternoon that only Knoxville offers.
Downtown Island Airport was Knoxville's first commercial airport
Dickinson Island - named for poet Emily Dickinson's cousin who purchased the plot in the 1800s - has seen a lot of history. When the concept of humans flying was new, the island offered a large stretch of flat farmland for experimentation.
It was not until 1930 that the island was officially designated an airport, though it was privately owned and had only a grass runway.
(McGhee Tyson Airport first opened in West Knoxville on Sutherland Avenue that same year, though it was not christened at its Blount County location until 1937, the year the airport marks as its beginning.)
Known then as "Island Home Airport" or just "Island Airport," the island became Knoxville's first commercial airport, connecting mail planes from New York City and Washington to Nashville and the West Coast.
Its early commercial flights to D.C., which began in the 1930s, could hold six to eight people for a rough ride. The island was still used for farming even as it became an early flight training and travel hub.
During World War II, the airport was a training site for 300 Army Air cadets through a partnership between the military and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
Around that time, a woman whose husband had enlisted in the Army decided to take up flying as a hobby and began taking lessons at the airport.
Evelyn Johnson, an aviator and flight instructor known as "Mama Bird," logged 57,635 flight hours and 5.5 million miles. Johnson, who died in 2012 at 102, sits in countless aviation halls of fame with the most flight hours for any woman, spending the equivalent of more than 6.5 years in the air.
When Johnson first began flying on the island, there was no bridge. Army cadets and early pilots had to pull themselves across the river on a floating ferry with a rope.
In 1963, the city of Knoxville purchased the airport for $175,000 from Mary Ellen Wattenbarger, widow of Henry Wattenbarger, president of U.S. Flying Services and longtime owner of the island. The city had plans to make the airport a hub for small personal and business planes.
After $450,000 worth of renovations, which added hangars and a 3,500-foot asphalt runway, the city unveiled the newly named Downtown Island Airport in 1966. Dozens of pilots used the airport to get to football games at UT. One game in 1968 brought 128 planes, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.
What it means that Downtown Island is an 'uncontrolled' airport
In 1973, the airport was getting enough traffic to earn an air traffic control tower, which operated full-time until an air traffic controller strike in 1981 pushed the Federal Aviation Administration to close dozens of towers at small airports.
The tower still operated at certain busy times, including for football games and the 1982 World's Fair. For the past decade or so, Downtown Island Airport has been completely uncontrolled, said Rob Voyles, director of general aviation for the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority. The airport functions like a four-way traffic stop, relying on communications between pilots for safe operations.
Downtown Island Airport was transferred to the new Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority in 1978, governed by a board of commissioners appointed by the mayor of Knoxville.
The authority's early challenge of losing the island tower stirred public controversy and media coverage after high-profile crashes and near-crashes in the 1980s.
A plane carrying Gov. Lamar Alexander came within 75 feet of colliding with another plane in 1986. In March 1988, a midair collision killed a flight instructor and his student and a separate crash on the riverbank killed four UT students.
Many in Knoxville wondered if these events would inspire the FAA to reinstate a tower, but there has never been full-time air traffic control again.
Pilots wait years for hangars at Downtown Island
Today, Downtown Island Airport is more popular than ever. The airport is home to 172 aircraft, seven flight schools, a maintenance hangar and the Knox County Sherriff's Office aviation unit, which operates five surplus military helicopters for search and rescue and special operations.
Pilots wait years to get hangar space at the airport. The waitlist is six years long, Voyles said. The Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority hopes to add 23 more hangars in the next 18 months, though construction costs have nearly tripled since the last batch of hangars was finished in 2018.
Despite its popularity, Downtown Island Airport is a money loser, not a money maker. It is subsidized by McGhee Tyson, even though it has a $40 million annual economic impact on the region, Voyles said. Pilots pay $365 a month for hangar space, but that cost will increase incrementally over the next several years.
"We have way more aircraft that want to be in a hangar than we actually have space," Voyles said. "A lot of them are just tied down outside and they put covers on them. My own personal aircraft is the same way."
The airport's operating hours are 7 a.m.-10 p.m. seven days a week. Weather affects small planes like those as Downtown Island much more than commercial jets. On a beautiful day, there might be up to 450 takeoffs and landings from the island. During a thunderstorm, there could be zero, Voyles said.
Friends of Downtown Island Airport connect with community
Since 2022, a nonprofit called Friends of Downtown Island Airport has worked to connect the airport with nearby neighborhoods in South Knoxville and turn the island into a more inviting community space. Ivy McIver, who works for the personal aviation company Cirrus at McGhee Tyson, is president of the nonprofit's board.
The first step to bringing the community in is making sure the airport entrance is welcoming, even as some pilots prefer the airport to stay secluded. The airport authority has designed an updated entrance that looks less like a high security facility and more like a public park.
The airport authority completed a $12 million rebuild of the Downtown Island Airport runway in 2023, the largest investment in the airport's history, and will soon finish upgrades to its central community hangar.
Eric Dragonetti flew small planes in Arizona, California, Florida, New Jersey and North Dakota before founding The CAVU Pilot, a flight school at Downtown Island. Several things make the airport stand out nationally, he said.
"There's not a lot of island airports around," Dragonetti said. "What makes it cool is not only the beautiful scenery, but there is a bit of a challenge to it."
The beautiful challenge of being surrounded by a foggy river, a bustling downtown and mountains is the airport's mystique. Pilots who learned to fly three miles from downtown Knoxville still fill the skies over the city with the pleasant drone of small planes. Once they land, they know they've made it home.
Know Your Knox answers your burning questions about life in Knoxville. Want your question answered? Email [email protected].
Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email [email protected].
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: What is Downtown Island Airport in Knoxville? | Know Your Knox
