Mathis Airport is a private airport

Airport

An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...

 located in unincorporated

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 Forsyth County

Forsyth County, Georgia

Forsyth County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. The county seat is Cumming, Georgia. Forsyth County is a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area...

, Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

, about 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Suwanee

Suwanee, Georgia

As of 2010 Suwanee had a population of 15,355. The racial and ethnic composition of the population was 67.4% white, 10.8% black or African American, 0.1% Native American, 18.0% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 1.3% reporting some other race and 2.3% reporting two or more races...

 in the northeastern part of metro Atlanta

Metro Atlanta

The Atlanta metropolitan area or metro Atlanta, officially designated by the US Census Bureau as the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Statistical Area, is the most populous metro area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the ninth-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States...

.

It has a (recently expanded) 1800-foot or 550-meter

Metre

The metre , symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units . Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole , its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology...

 runway

Runway

According to ICAO a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and take-off of aircraft." Runways may be a man-made surface or a natural surface .- Orientation and dimensions :Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, which is generally one tenth...

, and is 1171 feet (356.9 m) or 357 meters above mean sea level

Above mean sea level

The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...

 (AMSL). Mathis Airport sits among residential subdivisions in southern Forsyth County. It is a private airport, but memberships are available to pilots who wish to operate out of the airfield.

Mathis was home to Experimental Aircraft Association

Experimental Aircraft Association

The Experimental Aircraft Association is an international organization of aviation enthusiasts based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Since its inception it has grown internationally with over 160,000 members and about 1,000 chapters worldwide....

Chapter 1415, but in 2009 this chapter moved to Air Acres airport in Woodstock, GA.

LG Mathis founded Mathis Airport in 1959 as a privately owned / public use airport. In 1979 LG Mathis and Patrick McLaughlin began Mathis Airpark as a fly-in residential community adjacent to the airport. In 1985 LG Mathis sold half of the airport to his brother, CJ. In 1990 CJ Mathis bought the remaining half of the airport. In 1992 CJ sold the airport to Seven Oaks, LLC. In 1995 Seven Oaks, LLC sold the airport back to CJ Mathis. In June of 2004 CJ sold the airport (10.53 acres) and an adjacent subdivision lot (3.54 acres) in the airpark to the current owner, Flyboy Aviation Properties, LLC.

Since 2004, Flyboy Aviation expanded the airport in many ways (tore down the original wooden hangars and cinder-block FBO, added 17 new metal T-hangars, built a new club house, widened and lengthened the asphalt runway, asphalted taxiways and hangar aprons). Many of these improvements have caused friction between the airport, Forsyth County and the neighbors of the airport. Since 1979 the airport, whose property is zoned agricultural, has operated under Forsyth County Unified Development Code "non-conforming" use. Under this exemption, the expansion of the "non-conforming" use is forbidden. It is still being debated whether the improvements have violated the Forsyth County UDC.

Facilities

Mathis Airport covers 10.53 acres (4.3 ha) and has one runway:

• Runway 3/21: 1800 by 35 ft (548.6 by 10.7 m), Surface: Asphalt