Neil Armstrong took flight at Port Koneta
Airfield in Auglaize County a special spot for future astronaut.
In the spring of 1946, a small airfield arose on farmland just north of Wapakoneta in Auglaize County. Grandiosely named Port Koneta, it was nothing more than a 1,900-foot stretch of turf, a hangar, some surplus military planes and a few civilian trainers.
But 15-year-old Neil Armstrong would beat a path from town, two miles up Wapakoneta-Cridersville Road to the field whenever he had scraped up $9 for a flying lesson, according to James R. Hansen’s First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong (Simon & Schuster, 2012.)
Koneta’s trainers were Aeronca Champs. Built in Middletown, the fabric-skinned Champ had front-and-back seats and a tailwheel that made it tricky on the ground. It had no electrical system: the pilot flipped the propeller to start its 65-horsepower engine, wrote the late Richard “Dick” Schwer, who learned to fly at Koneta, in a 2006 article for the Auglaize County Historical Society’s newsletter.
Hemmed in by cornfields, Port Koneta and its Champs demanded precise flying skills. Armstrong earned his pilot’s certificate at age 16, before he had a driver’s license. He would build on his skills as a naval aviator in combat, an X-15 rocket plane pilot and, in less than three decades, the Apollo 11 astronaut who flew the Lunar Module Eagle to a nail-biting touchdown on the Sea of Tranquility.
The Champ Armstrong flew is on display in the Armstrong Air and Space Museum. Port Koneta is long gone, the property privately owned, but that patch of Auglaize County land is where Armstrong — and the world — took off for the moon.
Every Monday, the Dayton Daily News celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo program. To learn about Apollo-related events and exhibits around Ohio, visit apollo-moon.com.