BEATRICE – The Beatrice Municipal Airport hopes to rework its apron and fueling location, but also faces the need for more hangar and avionics space.
Beatrice Municipal Airport Manager Dennis Schmitt told city officials Monday night that he has put together a plan for needed improvements. The facility in north Beatrice currently is home to 37 aircraft, but with five hangars having space for 36…along with a waiting list.


"We are currently setting at about 28 people wanting a hangar or wanting to upgrade. Some of them are already in a hangar and just want to upgrade to something better than they have. But, I would say there's about 15 or 16 on there that don't have a hangar at all, and would like to be hangared here at Beatrice."


Two concrete runways are 5,600 feet and 4,400 feet. Schmitt says the airport is hoping to reconfigure its taxiways and move its 100 low-lead fuel island away from the center of the main apron.


"It's been in the planning for about four or five years. The FAA has a regulation where you can't have direct access from an aircraft ramp to a runway as we do. The plan would be to take taxiway charlie there, remove it completely and move it down to the north, and reconstruct a taxiway there. So, that anybody from a ramp would have to make some sort of turning maneuver to gain access to a runway. It's kind of a safety thing. The ramp area there, which is asphalt and where the fuel line island is...would get torn out. They would do it in phases so we wouldn't have to close down. There would be access to fuel. The 100 low lead that sits in the middle....that would be removed....and we would get an above-ground storage tank put off kind of to the south of the apron, there."

Beatrice Municipal fuel island
Beatrice Municipal fuel island  

 
The airport, which employs three full-time and three part-time employees, plays a big role in economic development for the area. It’s open every day from seven a.m. until seven p.m., with after-hours response for pilots as needed.


"There's local businesses that have other companies fly in to look at it. There's parts that get flown in, all of the time. Charter services bringing people into Beatrice to visit family....taking people from Beatrice to go to Chiefs games....things like that. Sometimes it's just a scheduled fuel stop....they're flying across country going to visit family. One of the big ones coming up in July is the EAA Air Venture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Usually, fuel sales pick up quite a bit, because we're kind of a mid-route for people from the south and the west, coming across....to stop and get fuel", Schmitt said. 


The facility also hosts agricultural spraying operations, flight training, and is used for medical transport and military training. It has an avionics shop that is in need of more room.


"He kind of needs more space for aircraft. One of the needs I have, too...is a spot for transient aircraft. We get aircraft in all of the time and due to weather, they want to get in a hangar overnight. He needs more room, but he would have enough room that he would provide that transient spot, too."


This year, the City assumed operations of the Beatrice Municipal Airport, turning the Airport Authority into an Airport Advisory Board, with appointed members serving five-year terms. The airport derives lease income from businesses that rent space and for crop growing.