September 1 - Starting Things Out “Flight”

ALEXANDRIA AIRPORT (HYBLA VALLEY AIRPORT)

Type of Exercise: Walk
Walk Stats:
Distance: 4.44 Mi
Time: 1 Hour 25 Minutes

This morning, I took a brisk walk in the dampness to the little-known original site of the Hybla Valley Airport (Fairfax County), which aspired to be known as Alexandria Airport.

It was the very FIRST airport in Virginia to obtain a permit, and it was used by it’s founder, Elvin W. Robertson, as the base for his flight school in 1929. Robertson gave full pilot’s license courses from this field for $200.00 at the time, which you got from the Mt. Vernon School of Aeronautics. The location of this airport is near to the Potomac River, just South of Alexandria and Washington DC. For a time, it was in competition to become THE airport to service all of the Capital Area!

One of it’s crazy cool claims to fame is that it was considered an ideal place for the Hindenburg class Zeppelins to stop to pickup/dropoff mail/passengers!

In the 1940s, the airport was taken over by the military and converted into a training ground for WWII fighter pilots. After that, it was sold to private owners of a nearby airfield (Beacon Field Airport) only a mile away. In 1956, the airport closed, and just 4 years later, the entirety of the field was covered in a new housing development. Something really cool about that development: ALL of the streets are named for aircraft manufacturers.

One more thing…the streets are named after aircraft manufacturers OF THE TIME (and some who still exist). What I mean to say here is that the street names represent both companies that no longer exist and companies, who have merged since and are very well known (like Northrop and Grumman - now Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed - now Lockheed Martin)

Here are some cool examples:
Stinson, Convair, Fairchild, Beechcraft, Piper

The airport is completely gone and has been replaced by a large retail shopping center as well as a residential development (since the 60s) and a school (Hybla Valley Elementary School). The only things that will tell you of the airport are a county commemorative marker erected in 2010 in the shopping center near a Five Guys, and a nearby Memorial down by the Costco on Rt. 1.

You can read more about this awesome airport of a bygone era at in the database of Abandoned & Little Known Airfields here!

Having reached the marker I wound my way back into the neighborhood on a conspicuously named street (Lindberg Drive) and took a picture of the loneliest sycamore tree EVER. It’s the only tree of its species that I’ve been able to find in a 5 mile radius!

I also took some pretty picture of the nearby Huntley Meadow, which was running rather high from the recent rains. Enjoy!