The general-aviation layer: Chapter 2, the schools, and the fight to keep Smith Field

1956 — 2026

The little field's second life: When the airlines left Smith Field in 1947, the flying did not. The field settled into the general-aviation life it still leads, and its institutions accumulated: EAA Chapter 2, chartered at Fort Wayne in 1956 — the second chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association in the world, by its number — has run Young Eagles rallies at the field since 1992 and counts more than 12,300 youth flights given, by the National Airmail Museum's accounting. Ivy Tech Community College built its Aviation Center at the field in 2012, a 21,000-square-foot, $2.3 million home for its aviation maintenance technology program. Three times the field was marked for death: a mayoral closure attempt in the 1970s, an airport-authority attempt in the early 1990s postponed by a ten-year moratorium, and — when the moratorium expired — the authority's 2002 vote to close it outright, operations to cease in July 2003. The defense this time was organized: Smith Airfield Forever (SAFE) and the SMD Fund petitioned, litigated, filled yards with "We support Smith Field" signs, and got the field onto the National Register of Historic Places in the middle of the fight. In March 2003 the airport authority reversed itself, and in April the commissioners voted to keep Smith Field open indefinitely; a 2008 federal grant for a new weather station carried grant obligations to keep it operating at least twenty years. The flight-training line runs through the fight: Smith Field Air Service, under Dr. Stephen Hatch, ran the field's training and rental operation until his death with his wife Kim in a 2011 plane crash at Charlevoix, Michigan; Chuck Surack of Sweetwater Sound then bought the operation and made it Sweet Aviation, the flight school, rental and maintenance business that occupies the historic hangar today and holds FAA Part 141 certification. The newest chapter is a museum: in 2024 the National Airmail Museum signed an agreement to lease Hangar 2 — the 1930 carousel-door hangar — as its future home, putting the airmail story back in the building the mail built.

Sources:

1. AOPA, "Smith Field: Airport of dreams" (2014), "Airport stories: Smith Field" (2014), and "Airport thrives after being saved from closure" (2009) — the three closure attempts, the 2002 vote and March–April 2003 reversal, the 2008 grant obligations, EAA Chapter 2 and Sweet Aviation.
2. Associated Press, via aviationpros.com (August 2005) — the SMDfund litigation and the Indiana Supreme Court's 2005 ruling against the challenge to the airport authority's legality.
3. EAA, "Chapter 2 Celebrates its 60th Anniversary" (12 October 2016) — the chapter's 1956 founding and Young Eagles program.
4. In Northwest News (April 2017) — the Smith Field Air Service to Sweet Aviation succession, the Hatch crash of 2011, the Part 141 certification.
5. WANE-TV (December 2024) — the National Airmail Museum's memorandum to lease Hangar 2.