History
The airport is also known as McKellar Field. It opened in 1942 and was assigned to the United States Army Air Forces Southeast Training Center (later the Eastern Flying Training Command) as a primary (level 1) pilot training airfield. There were also two local axillary airfields for emergency and overflow landings.
The airfield began training flying cadets under contract to Georgia Air Services, Inc. Flying training was performed with Fairchild PT-19s as the primary trainer. It also had several PT-17 Stearmans assigned.
The facility was inactivated on 16 October 1944 with the drawdown of AAFTC's pilot training program. It was declared surplus and turned over to the Army Corps of Engineers on 30 September 1945. Eventually it was discharged to the War Assets Administration (WAA) and became a civil airport.
McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport is named in memory of the late Kenneth Douglas McKellar (1869–1957), a U.S. senator from Tennessee; and Major Robert Ray "Buster" Sipes, an Air Force pilot from Jackson who was killed in action during the Vietnam War in 1969. Sipes is buried at the Shiloh National Military Park cemetery.
Major Sipes was killed in action during the Vietnam War but he was killed when his F-101 Voodoo crashed after takeoff from RAF Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, England. He was a USAF test pilot. A plaque can be found in the Church of St Peter & St Paul at Steeple Aston to remember Major Robert Sipes.
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