Airport Improvements Explained

Work con­tin­ues toward improve­ments at the Williams County Air­port. It’s all part of an ongo­ing improve­ment plan for the air­port, and it has been quite not­i­ca­ble for the past few weeks if you have been there, with the resur­fac­ing of the run­way being a big pri­or­ity.

The Bryan Kiwa­nis Club is inter­ested in what’s hap­pen­ing there. They hold the fourth of July Fly In Break­fast there every year, and it is a huge fundraiser for the club.

Accord­ing to the Bryan Times, the air­port man­ager met with the mem­bers of the Kiwa­nis Club this week to fill them in on what’s hap­pen­ing at the air­port.

He told mem­bers that what has been hap­pen­ing over the past sev­eral weeks is what is called the over­lay project for the run­way. IT’s been planned for about two years, and will end up cost­ing more than $1 Mil­lion. The good news is that more than 90 per­cent of the cost is being cov­ered by a Fed­eral Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion grant, with only 10 per­cent being cov­ered by local funds.

Once the run­way over­lay is com­pleted, grooves will be cut into the pave­ment to enhance air­crafts’ brak­ing, and next spring the pave­ment mark­ing will be com­pleted.

The air­port han­dles about 350 jet flights a year, many bring­ing in cor­po­rate offi­cers, along with tech­ni­cians and engi­neers.

In addi­tion to jet flights, the air­port also han­dles about 2,500 flights by propeller-driven air­craft, includ­ing many flights for agri­cul­tural spray­ing and seed­ing.

Air­port offi­cials say the upgrades can be expected to yield an increase in traf­fic at the airport.