History
Arthur Jacob “Art” Davis (1895-1979) was a renowned military pilot, barnstormer, stunt flyer, air racer, aircraft mechanic, flight instructor, test pilot, parachute engineer, charter pilot, airport owner, and all-around aviation guru. By his reckoning, he won over 400 air races and stunt flying competitions, mostly in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, and was undefeated as a balloon racer (his 12 national titles remains the most in history). He performed for the King and Queen of England, was a fighter pilot in WWI, and trained pilots during WWII. He claimed to have flown just about every plane, from a Curtiss JN-4D Jenny (his WWI fighter) to an F-80 fighter and a B-29 bomber. He established a variety of aviation-related businesses in the Lansing, Michigan area, starting with Michigan Airways in 1922, which he ran from his own airfield in East Lansing. He soon moved to the Foster Hangar at Lansing Capital City Airport, finally selling his business in early 1942 to Gerry Francis so that he could concentrate on his stunt flying business, the Art Davis Flying Circus. By the late 1940s, Art was ready to settle down a bit, and in 1948 he opened the Art Davis Airport, 2D8, just north of East Lansing, MI. The airport served the needs of local GA pilots, especially those associated with Michigan State University, until its closure in 2000.
Art Davis was born in Grand Junction, Iowa, a tiny town located in Greene County. He attended local schools, and at the age of 13 moved with his parents to Allegan County, Michigan, where he graduated from Martin High School. He enrolled at Michigan Agricultural College (MAC, now Michigan State University) in 1917, but soon after completing his first solo flight left to join the military, becoming an air cadet at Kelly Field in San Antonio, earning his wings at the University of Illinois, and receiving a commission as a second lieutenant in the US Army Signal Corps. After rising to captain while serving in WWI, he returned to MAC and graduated with a degree in engineering in 1923. He financed his final three years at MAC by barnstorming and entering flying competitions during the summers. In his senior year, Art was barnstorming in Ionia, MI, when he gave a ride in his Curtiss OX-5 to a 16-year-old girl, Rhoda Conner, at a local fair. Two years later they were married, and they soon had a son, Art Junior, who would fly helicopters during the Korean War and later flew exhibitions with his father. Rhoda had her own amazing aviation career, competing in air races, barnstorming, and opening a flight school with a fleet of 10 airplanes in Lansing, in 1937, to train military pilots. Among other milestones, she became the first woman to perform a loop in an autogyro, at an air show in Minneapolis. Eventually she and Art broke up, and she married her former flying student, George Starr, in 1940. George was a pilot during WWII, and went on to become a captain for American Airlines. Rhoda Starr passed away in 2010 at the age of 103.
Art became well-known as a stunt flyer and air racer during the 1930s. He developed several dangerous tricks, such as “Davis’ Kiss of Death” and “Davis’ Wall of Fire”, but never had an accident during his races or performances. An article in the 1931 Michigan State College Record gave a sense of his fame in his home state
Lansing accorded a hearty welcome to its most distinguished flying son, Art Davis, when he returned from the south where he had spent several days in quest of further race and stunt prizes. He was officially escorted to the Capital City airport by a fleet of local planes which met him several miles outside the city. The city's officialdom and the Eastern high school band met Davis at the airport and conducted him to the Hotel Olds where a banquet was staged in his honor. Davis' numerous trophies, won in air events in many parts of the nation, were on display at the hotel. Among them was the beautiful Cincinnati trophy which he captured last winter in the Miami air races.
By early 1939 Art had set roots in East Lansing, opening a flying club to train Michigan State College students. But WW2 soon broke out, and he left to train pilots and serve as a Major in the Ferry Command, delivering bombers and other airplanes to military sites around the world. He passed 50,000 flying hours in 1946, and continued barnstorming and performing stunts at airshows through his 50s. However, it seemed that by the late 1940s Art wanted a bit more stability in his life. In a 1946 article in the Lansing State Journal he describes his plans to join Wermuth’s Flying Tiger Air Circus, and to take on contracts for sky-writing across the country, but also talks about building his own airport in the East Lansing Area, saying “I’m not going to give instruction, though, when I get the airport started. I’m going to take ‘er easy and go fishing.”
By 1948, Art’s airport was a reality. A note in the September, 1948, issue of the Michigan State College Record notes “Major Arthur Davis, celebrating his thirtieth year of flying, and his aerobatic troupe headed the Michigan Air Fair staged July 18. The show was sponsored by the Lansing Exchange club and included dedication of the Davis airport two miles north of East Lansing.” The airport flourished well into the 1990s, becoming home for the Flying Spartans flying club, and a base for many pilots in the Lansing and East Lansing areas. The FBO was run for many years by Art’s close friend Dale Sheren and his wife Edith, who were also part owners. Dale died in 1976, and Edith continued to manage the airport. The Sheren’s son, Harvey, a United Airlines pilot who got his training at Davis Airport, bought out Art’s share of the airport after Art died in 1979, and co-managed with Edith, retiring as an airline pilot in 1998. Uncounted numbers of pilots obtained their private certificates and took advanced training at the airport through Sheren Aviation. Sadly, the airport was closed in 2000 and the land sold to developers, who erected a group of apartment complexes for Michigan State University Students, becoming known as the “Northern Tier.” Edith Sheren passed away not long after, in 2003 at the age of 91. Harvey died in 2017 at the age of 79, and Art Junior passed away in 2018 at the age of 86, ending a truly memorable era for Lansing Aviation.
The Davis Airport as constructed for Microsoft Flight Simulator
I never visited Davis Airport during my regrettably short time as a real-world pilot, although I certainly passed over the airfield many times on final for runway 28L at Lansing Capital City Airport. The former LA NDB, 206 kHz, which was the ARTDA LOM for the ILS approach to 28L, was located just a half-mile northeast of Davis Airport and was named for Art Davis. Since I’m not familiar with how the airport was laid out, I relied heavily on the many wonderful pictures on Paul Freeman’s Abandoned & Little Known Airfields website (see http://www.airfields-freeman.com/mi/Airfields_MI_C.htm#davis), as well as the airport diagrams in past editions of the Michigan Airport Directory. The 1976 Directory shows three active intersecting turf runways, but by the time of the 1987 Directory runway 16-34 had been closed to all but local traffic. I based the layout of the airport on the 1996 Directory, which also shows the runway as being for local use only. According to the recollections of pilots on Paul Freeman’s website, runway 9-27 was the primary runway, and the Directory shows it as lighted with snow removal.
I built the airport using only Microsoft/Asobo scenery elements, so I was not able to precisely duplicate the airport structures, especially the Sheren Aviation Hangar. I did my best, and I hope that anyone with fond memories of the airport will be forgiving. I added a few embellishments for the enjoyment of the simming community, but tried to stay true to the overall layout. To install the airport, just unzip the folder titled “mulberrywing-airport-2d8-davis-airport” and place it in your community folder. Update -- see V 2.0 update below.
Version 2.0 Update
I have constructed the Sheren Aviation hangar in Blender as best I could using the few blurry pictures available. I have replaced the stock buildings used to construct this hangar with the new version, and added many embelishments to the internals and externals of the hangar. Please see the updated screen shots. To install the update, merely replace the existing folder “mulberrywing-airport-2d8-davis-airport” in your community folder with the new one.
Notes
The Davis Airport was a satellite of the Lansing Capital City Airport located within a carve-out of the inner ring of the Class-C airspace. As noted in the Michigan Airport Directory, the traffic pattern altitude was 600 feet AGL, to prevent interference with KLAN traffic, and to stay beneath the floor of the Class-C outer ring. The carve-out remained on sectionals until the airspace was restructured in 2018.
The airport was always designated as “East Lansing”, but was actually located slightly to the north of the city line. When the city annexed a large amount of land to its north, the area of the airport was not included, and the former airport area still lies within Bath Township.
This is the fourth airport in my series of former and fictional airports associated with Michigan State University. The others may be found at
https://flightsim.to/file/51205/kmsu-michigan-state-university-landing-strip-historical-fictional
https://flightsim.to/file/50227/kmsc-glenn-a-rushman-airfield-east-lansing-michigan-fictional
https://flightsim.to/file/52009/kogo-olander-field-michigan-state-police-east-lansing-fictional
JakeFlight
Super nice work! Thanks! I really appreciate the history you shared. Good stuff. All of the details make taxiing in a blast.
MulberryWing author
Glad you like it!
1 years ago