Dillingham Airfield is a military and public airport operated by the Hawaiian Department of Transportation under a 25 year lease from the US army. The Dillingham Military Reservation encompasses 650 acres, of which 134 is leased by the state on which a 9000 foot runway is operated primarily for gliders and skydiving operations. The field is used jointly by the army who has first priority for air-land operations and helicopter night-vision training. The field does not have any lighting for general aviation.
Starting from 1985, hangars for fixed wing aircraft and gliders as well as bathrooms and a fire station were added. The field also served as the location where several TV series had been filmed such as LOST and Hawaii Five-0 which used the airfield in its second episode.
The area which is now the airfield had been used as a deployment site for mobile coast artillery in the 1920's. The army established a camp in 1922. In December 1941, a fighter airstrip had been established on additional leased land and Mokuleia Airstrip was established. The airstrip was used for the deployment of P-40 aircraft when the attack of Pearl Harbor took place. By the end of World War II, The airfield had been improved that it could handle B-29 bombers
The airfield name was changed from the Mokuleia Airfield to Dillingham Air Force Base in 1948 in memory of Captain Henry Gaylord Dillingham, who was a B-29 pilot killed in action over Kawasaki, Japan on the 25th of July 1945. He was the grandson of Benjamin F. Dillingham, the founder of OR&L which became Hawaii Dredging Company and the Dillingham Corporation and the son of Walter H. Dillingham, a noted pilot of Oahu in 1945.