Virginia Tech Airport

The airport was founded in 1931 as a college-owned facility. School funds and a grant from the Works Progress Administration in the early 1940s paid for paving a runway and building a hangar. Two training programs offered here made the airport important during World War II. The Civilian Pilot Training Program taught selected cadets at VPI and other colleges around the country how to fly airplanes. An aircraft mechanics training program, operated under the National Youth Administration, trained hundreds of high school graduates as mechanics. Students lived at a facility just northwest of here.