John H. Batten Airport


John H. Batten Airport, also known as Batten International Airport, is a public use airport located northwest of the central business district of Racine, a city in Racine County, Wisconsin, United States, North America. It is privately owned by the Racine Commercial Airport Corporation. It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2019–2023, in which it is categorized as a regional reliever general aviation facility.

History

The airport was founded in 1941 by Carlyle Godske on roughly of land purchased from local businessman J.A. Horlick. For most of its history, the airport was known as Racine-Horlick Field, but on September 5, 1989, the name was changed to John H. Batten Field. John H. Batten was one of the airport's early founders and supporters as well as the longtime CEO of Racine's Twin Disc, Inc.
During World War II, the newly established airport was used as a flight and ground school for the Army. Students were housed at Racine College on the south side of Racine. Ground school instruction was given at Horlick High School and the actual flight training took place at the airport. Today, the airport is used primarily by local aviation enthusiasts and by the corporate jets of large local companies such as S.C. Johnson & Son and Twin Disc, Inc.

Facilities and aircraft

On July 30, 2010, plans were announced to have a full-time aviation maintenance firm on the field, planned to have opened on September 1, 2010.
John H. Batten Airport covers an area of, including two paved runways:
For the 12-month period ending July 5, 2018, the airport had 47,000 aircraft operations, an average of 129 per day: 96% general aviation and 4% air taxi. In June 2020, there were 98 aircraft based at this airport: 79 single-engine, 10 multi-engine, 4 jet, 4 helicopter and 1 ultra-light.