I did this thread after thinking about Hobart Airport (HBA/YMHB) and Cambridge Aerodrome (don’t know ICAO code).
These two airports are within 5nm of each other, so the approach to one of the Cambridge runways is right over the top of HBA. (HBA isn’t that busy and only sees 737-800s at largest on a regular basis).

Further north (still in Australia), is Melbourne Airport (MEL/YMML) and Essendon airfield. These two aren’t as close as Hobart but they still are within 10 nm of each other.

What other airports are within 5-10nm of each other (doesn’t have to be in Australia)?

First example I can think of is Brescia in northern Italy. The civilian Montichiari Airport and the military Ghedi Air Base are so close to each other they could have been the same airport.

What about Brown Muncipal Field in San Diego, California and Tijuana International Airport in Tijuana, Mexico. There's a border inbetween, but other than that they're really close.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

What about Brown Muncipal Field in San Diego, California and Tijuana International Airport in Tijuana, Mexico. There's a border inbetween, but other than that they're really close.

Thanks for that!

I completely forgot about those two.

(On a side note, every time I fly into Tijuana on X-Plane or Infinite Flight, I always hum the song ‘Spanish Flea’, which was written and performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass).

Hamburg has the international airport HAM and the Airbus field XFW, that are rather close and with almost patallel approach. When landing at XFW towards the southwest you see HAM below you. XFW is not a commercial airport, but still sees quite some traffic from Airbus plus the 2 daily shuttles to and from Toulouse.

In Toulouse there is also another airfield close to TLS (forgot the name), but I never saw any trafric there.


Gruß, masi1157

Front Range Airport (FTG) is a fairly busy General Aviation airport located less than 3 miles from Denver International.

Bucharest deserves to be mentioned. The distance between Aurel Vlaicu Airport (BBU) and Henri Coanda Airport (OTP) is only 4 nautical miles.

That's less than the distance between RAF Northolt (NHT) and London Heathrow (LHR), which also qualifies. Those airports are more or less 5 nautical miles apart.

Near Brussels there's Grimbergen airfield, a small grass strip for recreational aviation. The distance between Brussels Zaventem and Grimbergen is about 4 nautical miles.

And here's another one. Son Bonet Aerodrome in Palma de Mallorca is only about 3 nautical miles from Palma de Mallorca international airport.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

First example I can think of is Brescia in northern Italy. The civilian Montichiari Airport and the military Ghedi Air Base are so close to each other they could have been the same airport.

Not just Brescia, but all of Northern Italy. Turin, Milano Malpensa, Linate and Bergamo, then Brescia, Verona and Venice. It never takes more than 1:20 to get to the next airport over.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Bucharest deserves to be mentioned. The distance between Aurel Vlaicu Airport (BBU) and Henri Coanda Airport (OTP) is only 4 nautical miles.

You even have to drive past Baneasa in order to get to the city center from Otopeni

Menorca has 2 airports separated by about 1 nautical mile. They are angled so you are on the centerline of both, when approaching from the south.

JFK is about 10 miles to La Garbage, that's probably the most famous.

How about CDG and Le Bourget, which are also pretty close?

In Sacramento, McClellan Airport (Formerly McClellan Air Force Base) is about 10 miles from SMF. MCC now just gets a handful of biz jets and small GA aircraft per day, but during fire season it hosts the big air tankers as well. I don't know if the approaches would interfere with each other. The runways at both airports are nearly parallel with each other, so I'm guessing not.

There are LAX and Hawthorne, and VNY and BUR. TTD and PDX are close enough that I remember hearing PA accidentally landed at TTD back in the day. Some say 707, some say 747. When I lived in the Seattle area, one reason I loved BFI was seeing traffic for both BFI and SEA.

Here is a list of some close airports
EGLL/EGKK- 25 MI
KSFB/KMCO- 25 MI
KIAD/KDCA- 23 MI
EGLL/EGLC- 22 MI
KJFK/KEWR- 20 MI
KLGA/KEWR- 17 MI
KSFO/KOAK- 11 MI
KJFK/KLGA- 10 MI
KSEA/KBFI- 5 MI

seb146 wrote:

There are LAX and Hawthorne, and VNY and BUR. TTD and PDX are close enough that I remember hearing PA accidentally landed at TTD back in the day. Some say 707, some say 747. When I lived in the Seattle area, one reason I loved BFI was seeing traffic for both BFI and SEA.

TTD is 10 miles, but VUO is only 4 miles from PDX, with a river in between.

Here is another pair of airports, that I both used:
IGR (Puerto Iguazu, Argentina) and IGU (Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil) are just 16km apart. And there is also AGT (Ciudad del Este, Paraguay) again in another country, 39km resp. 49km from the other two.


Gruß, masi1157

jonnyclam123 wrote:

Here is a list of some close airports
EGLL/EGKK- 25 MI
KSFB/KMCO- 25 MI
KIAD/KDCA- 23 MI
EGLL/EGLC- 22 MI
KJFK/KEWR- 20 MI
KLGA/KEWR- 17 MI
KSFO/KOAK- 11 MI
KJFK/KLGA- 10 MI
KSEA/KBFI- 5 MI

Most of them don't qualify. The opening post clearly said maximum distance between the airports 10 nautical miles. Since a nautical mile is just under a regular mile, 11 regular miles is about equal to 10 nautical miles. This makes that San Francisco - Oakland barely qualifies. New York JFK - LaGuardia has already been mentioned before and no doubt Seattle - Boeing field qualifies. The rest, sorry, but they're too far apart.

masi1157 wrote:

Here is another pair of airports, that I both used:
IGR (Puerto Iguazu, Argentina) and IGU (Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil) are just 16km apart. And there is also AGT (Ciudad del Este, Paraguay) again in another country, 39km resp. 49km from the other two.


Gruß, masi1157

16 kilometers is equal to 8,6 nautical miles, so that qualifies as it's less than 10. However Ciudad del Este is over 10 nautical miles away and therefor doesn't qualify.

KFLL & KFXE are about 10 miles apart.

KHOU and KEFD are pretty close together.

Louisville International is what ---5,6 miles the way the bird flies to Bowman Field.

There are a lot more than I think many people expect, especially near major bodies of water. For example, just off the top of my head, using San Francisco Bay, in addition to OAK-SFO: NUQ (NASA's Moffett Field) is 7nm from SJC (and it's only around 20nm from SFO). PAO (Palo Alto, which is an extremely busy GA airport) is just up the road from NUQ, although it's just outside of 10nm from SJC it still merits a mention as it's less than 20nm from all three of SJC, SFO, and OAK.

Columbia River near PDX: There's a small GA airfield (1W1) 8nm from PDX. TTD is also within 10nm of PDX. But VUO is almost straight across the river - it's 3nm from PDX.

Same principle, Potomac River near DC: CGS is 9nm from DCA. JYO is 9nm from IAD.

Then there's maybe the most famous (at least on a.net) example: WRY-PPW is 2nm and has commercial service.

I was going to say SEA and BFI but someone beat me to it.

However, there is also RTN and BFI; and RTN and SEA. There are in the ballpack of 5 or less miles apart.

What about Spokane International (GEG) and Fairchild Air Force Base (SKA)? It's about 5.5 miles between them.

There is MSP and STP. Just about 10nm away from each other

Do MCI and MKC fit into this? 14 miles apart.

EFHK and EFHF (Helsinki Malmi) about 4,7 NM/8,7 km

And there's LEMD (Madrid) and Torrejon air base, about 5,2 NM to the east

As the crow flies Baldonnell/Casement to Weston airport near Dublin is just 7 km, or around 4 regular miles

Everyone knows St. Martin Princess Juliana Airport (SXM), however there is also Grand Case-Espérance Airport (SFG) on the same island. Both airports are just 5 nautical miles apart.

SIN (Singapore Changi) and QPG (Paya Lebar air base) are just 5nm apart, SIN and XSP (Seletar airport) 8nm. QPG to XSP are only 4nm.

KIX (Osaka Kansai) and UKB (Kobe) are around 12nm apart, so a bit more than the mentioned 10nm, but still this is interesting, as both are located in the same bay area on artificial islands. There is also no historical reason for this vicinity, KIX was opened 1994, Kobe 2006, so both are relatively new. In fact, many locals protested against building Kobe airport and instead favored a better public transportation system to KIX and ITM. To my opinion, it is true, that all of those airports have a quite inefficient access to the surrounding cities, it can take quite a long time to get from either airport to the city centers of Kobe or Osaka (and even longer if you want to go for example to Kyoto, which is also served by mentioned airports). Kobe airport is actually closer to Osaka city, than Kansai airport is.

Anchorage International and the Lake Hood Seaplane Base are basically part of the same airport.

BOM and Juhu AIrport are around 0.3 nm between property lines.

DXB and SHJ are both major international airports roughly 11 miles apart. Or by road, 20 minutes (assuming there is no horrible Dubai/Sharjah traffic in which case allow 45-60 minutes).

Taba, Eilat, and Aqaba in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan respectively are all very close to each other on the Gulf of Aqaba. Between TCP and ETH it's 11 nm, and between ETH and AQJ it's 5 nm. So there you have not two but three airports practically on top of each other.

KLMatSJC wrote:

BOM and Juhu AIrport are around 0.3 nm between property lines.

Yup, they're very close......back in the 70s there were two incidents of planes landing at Juhu by mistake......one (JAL DC-8) ended up in plane being a complete writeoff (no casualties)…..the other plane was able to take off a few days later..

Hawthorne Airport HHR (home of SpaceX) is only 4nm from LAX.

A further fetched example. HKG is only 38km away from MFM and SZX(yep, exact same distance).

B1168 wrote:

A further fetched example. HKG is only 38km away from MFM and SZX(yep, exact same distance).

But doesn't qualify as it's further than 10 nm apart.

In Belfast,northern Ireland there is the city airport (BHD/EGAC), and the international airport (BFS/EGAA), they aren't as close as other airports but for a small city like Belfast they are close together.

Rhodes. RHO Diagoras is just over 2nm from its predecessor Maritsa LGRD which seems to be still active for military and some civil aviation, but not commercial.

Mark

Another thing I know is that the future Xiamen Xiang'an Airport would be very close to Kinmen Airport according to Wikipedia.

SQ789 wrote:

Another thing I know is that the future Xiamen Xiang'an Airport would be very close to Kinmen Airport according to Wikipedia.

8nm to be exact according to GCMap:
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=24%B033%26 ... =wls&DU=mi

On a side note, though, I didn't realized that XMN (Gaoqi) and KNH are actually 15mi apart. Kinmen and Xiamen (the Island part) looks like they're next to each other on map.

Just adding another example to the list - Rapid City Airport (RAP/KRAP) vs. Ellsworth AFB (RCA/KRCA), 7mi/6nmi apart. Notable b/c of the DL flight that landed at Ellsworth instead of RAP in 2016:
https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/09/us/delta ... index.html

EDIT:

conaly wrote:

SIN (Singapore Changi) and QPG (Paya Lebar air base) are just 5nm apart, SIN and XSP (Seletar airport) 8nm. QPG to XSP are only 4nm.

KIX (Osaka Kansai) and UKB (Kobe) are around 12nm apart, so a bit more than the mentioned 10nm, but still this is interesting, as both are located in the same bay area on artificial islands. There is also no historical reason for this vicinity, KIX was opened 1994, Kobe 2006, so both are relatively new. In fact, many locals protested against building Kobe airport and instead favored a better public transportation system to KIX and ITM. To my opinion, it is true, that all of those airports have a quite inefficient access to the surrounding cities, it can take quite a long time to get from either airport to the city centers of Kobe or Osaka (and even longer if you want to go for example to Kyoto, which is also served by mentioned airports). Kobe airport is actually closer to Osaka city, than Kansai airport is.

One of the proposed site earlier on for KIX was near the present UKB location, but that was shot down and eventually, they picked the current site of KIX that's far from pretty much everything.

UKB was built as part of "rebuilding" of Kobe after the 1995 earthquake. It did faced heavy opposition anyway (b/c, well, it is a giant boondoogle, and making things worse is the artificial slot restriction at UKB). UKB is not far from Kobe city center, though (18 mins to Sannomiya Station), but doesn't really catch much traffic from the rest of Keihanshin Area otherwise.

Side note, although UKB and KIX are 10nmi apart on a straight line, getting between the two involved either a 30 mins "fast" ferry ride (That was heavily use during the last Typhoon that knocked out the bridge to KIX) or a long drive/train ride around Osaka Bay.

masi1157 wrote:

Hamburg has the international airport HAM and the Airbus field XFW, that are rather close and with almost patallel approach. When landing at XFW towards the southwest you see HAM below you. XFW is not a commercial airport, but still sees quite some traffic from Airbus plus the 2 daily shuttles to and from Toulouse.

In Toulouse there is also another airfield close to TLS (forgot the name), but I never saw any trafric there.


Gruß, masi1157

Now you need to tell the story of Finkenwerder Airlines alias Spantax

Few cases I remember in Brazil:

- São Paulo: Campo de Marte (SBMT) is located 7nm away from CGH/SBSP and 10nm from GRU/SBGR. All 3 of them are as busy as they can get, making a crowded airspace aroud the city.

- Rio de Janeiro: SDU/SBRJ is located 8nm from away both GIG/SBGL and SBAF; 12nm from SBJR.

-Belo Horizonte: CNF/SBCF is 4 nm away from SBLS and 12nm from PLU/SBBH

- Manaus: MAO/SBEG and SBMN are 7nm apart from each other

- Porto Alegre: POA/SBPA is 3nm away from Canoas/SBCO

- Curitiba: CWB/SBCT is 8nm away from BFH/SBBI

- Teresina: THE/SBTE is 2nm away from SNDR (which is in another state!)

I always wondered how flight paths worked when Alameda Naval Air Station was open. It's 5.5 mi away from OAK and directly under the normal departure from rwy 30.

Miami International is 8 miles from Miami/Opa Locka Executive. Miami/Opa Locka is 7 miles from North Perry. North Perry is 7 miles from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International is 9 miles from Fort Lauderdale Executive.

Upthread someone mentioned that two that came to mind for me: Hawthorne and LAX. You overfly the Hawthorne runway on approach to the south side runways at LAX. I remember that a BA 747 landed at Hawthorne in error many years ago. I have had my cell phone, I know it should have been in airplane mode, come on and welcome me to Hawthorne in the final minutes of a flight arriving at LAX.

The other pair that come to mind are North Island NAS and San Diego International (KSAN). North Island is across the bay from SAN with one set of runways at roughly 90 degrees to KSAN's sole runway. Interesting because commercial freighters arriving North Island, sometimes follow the San Diego approach down to a minimum and then execute a 90 degree turn roughly over the terminal buildings before landing. I've seen mostly 747s, one AN 225 and Air Force One execute this approach and landing. I used to own a condo on Cortez Hill in downtown San Diego in part because I loved the view of final approach into SAN.

Heathrow, Northolt and Farmborough are pretty, if not 10nm radius. Jacksonville, if you include military bases and Norfolk, too. Wichita, Kansas has 4 or 5 airports including the main civil and McConnell within the city limits. BiggsAAF and ELP are practically the same place. Adana Civil, Turkey and Incirlik AB are pretty close but probably outside of 10nm.

The Gulf of Aqaba is interesting in that it’s three countries and three airports. Flying up the Gulf without Israeli permits was interesting as it feels like the nose is in Jordan and the two wingtips in their “own” countries, it’s so narrow from F350. The flight enters the Gulf pointed right at Saudi before doing a 90 degree turn.

GF

In Adelaide, Parafield Airport (YPPF - largely a training airport) is 10.6kms by road to the Edinburgh RAAF Base (YPED).