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What makes Donaldson Center so special? Recently, South Carolina’s aeronautics division completed an aviation study used to develop a new airport systems plan. The results, said Bryson, were surprising.
“They interviewed 50 out of 60 airports, and Donaldson is totally unique to the state,” he said.
The mix of businesses certainly contributes to this distinction, as does the sheer size of the place. Cevallos said that it is the largest general aviation airport, by land area, in the entire state. With such an extensive runway, it has even been designated as one of the few sites for the Space Shuttle to land, should there be a need.
The runway has roots in the military. The U.S. War Department identified a part of Greenville that was mostly rural in the early 1940s to support the U.S. buildup for the war. The development of technology meant that the sod airfields of World War I could not support the new U.S. Army Air Force’s planes, so a hard surface runway was constructed. The entire base was complete and officially activated in June 1942 and immediately began training replacement air crews.
Among the first to arrive were the colorful Jolly Rogers, also known as the 90th Bomb Group and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, the first women’s unit trained to fly U.S. military aircraft. The other group was the 334th who flew B-25s. They remained in Greenville to train fresh crews. In 1951, the base was renamed Donaldson Air Force Base, in honor of Capt. John O. Donaldson, a Greenville native and World War I flying ace.
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