By AMY RICKER
Great Bend Post
With 90% funding by both the Federal and the State, the reconstruction is almost complete on the Great Bend Municipal Airport's primary runway.
Great Bend Airport Manager Martin Miller says the runway has been open for a while, and the majority of what is left is paperwork.
The airport also received a grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation Aviation (KDOTAviation) to complete a 2000-foot stretch of the parallel taxiway. This will be an asphalt portion that Venture Corporation will be constructing.
Miller says that while people don't typically think of KDOT as a source of funding for airports, by statute, KDOT must provide $5 million a year to the 134 airports in the State.
The airport was closed for a while during the pandemic, but Martin says local traffic has returned to normal levels.
"Actually, the local traffic has been very busy. We don't see that much coast-to-coast traffic with the business aircraft, but it's all shaping up as we are in a good location in the country," said Miller.
Martin said that another project is a 5-year plan that includes several airport improvements.
"We are in a 5-year plan that will include the reconstruction of the crosswind runway. That probably won't start for another two years because we are waiting for our allotment to pay for that," explained Miller. We are in line for that, but it will take two to three years to engineer, design, and build it. So that's down the road. Then in five years, it will be time to put a seal on the new runway to help it last a long time."
Martin says the crosswind runway is used often for aerial applicators and other agriculture pilots. When you consider the recent wind speeds that Barton County has been experiencing, the crosswind runway has been utilized a lot. A crosswind runway is a runway in addition to the primary runway that provides for wind coverage that is not adequately supplied by the primary runway.