M. Graham Clark Field, Taney County Airport
Encyclopedia
M. Graham Clark Field, Taney County Airport is a county-owned public-use airport
located one nautical mile (2 km) northeast of the central business district
of Point Lookout
, in Taney County
, Missouri
, United States
. It is one mile southwest of Branson, Missouri
and a few yards west of the old downtown area of Hollister, Missouri
.
for use in their aviation science department, and was originally officially associated with the village of Point Lookout, Missouri
, a small village on a bluff overlooking the White River Valley which was later completely bought out and overwhelmed by the development of the college. The airport identifier, PLK, was based on the name of the town officially associated with the facility under a federal grant through which the college originally developed the airport.
The airport was named after M. Graham Clark, the president of the college at the time the airport was originally constructed.
College of the Ozarks closed down its aviation science department in 2003. Shortly thereafter, the airport was donated by the college to Taney County so that the Branson and Hollister community would not lose its important general aviation airport.
A private entity had contracted with the college to provide commercial airline service to Clark Field, serving Branson, in the late-1990s, but the venture failed and the terminal building, fire department building, and associated ramp were turned over to the college. The airport currently does not have any scheduled commercial airline service. Since the opening of the newly developed Branson Airport
and the construction of new terminal facilities at the Springfield-Branson National Airport there is no expectation of airline service at Clark Field.
Clark Field is operated by Taney County as a public general aviation airport.
The FBO is operated by the Taney County Airport Board. Repair services are available from Branson Aircraft Repair, LLC. Helicopter charter, touring, and flight training if offered, as well.
of 940 feet (287 m) above mean sea level. The only runway is runway 11-29. A GPS Approach is published for both runways. The runway is also equipped with a medium intensity approach lighting system. The runway is 3738 feet (1,139.3 m) in length and 100 feet (30.5 m) feet wide.
For the 12-month period ending November 30, 2005, the airport had 11,200 aircraft operations, an average of 30 per day: 96% general aviation
, 4% air taxi
, <1% military
. At that time there were 51 aircraft based at this airport: 73% single-engine
, 25% multi-engine and 2% helicopter
.
, Kansas City Downtown Airport, and Spirit of St. Louis Airport
, outranking Kansas City International Airport
and Springfield-Branson National Airport. The airport serves helicopter operations. Also, there is a substantial antique airplane collector on the field and the field is popular with other operators flying aircraft without radios. There is no control tower as it is an uncontrolled field. It is not uncommon for there to be several aircraft in the pattern at the same time.
All other accidents have been comparatively minor, including a few gear-up accidents, several incidents involving mechanical problems, a few tailwheel failures or ground looped landings, and a few crosswind related accidents involving student pilots. There have also been a few aircraft over-run the end of the runway, including a chartered Beechcraft King Air
in the mid-1990s.
Airport
An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...
located one nautical mile (2 km) northeast of the central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
of Point Lookout
Point Lookout, Missouri
Point Lookout is an unincorporated community in Taney County, Missouri, United States, near Branson and Hollister. A college town, it is next to Lake Taneycomo and is home to the College of the Ozarks. College of the Ozarks hosts the NAIA Division II basketball tournament annually.Point Lookout is...
, in Taney County
Taney County, Missouri
Taney County is a county located in Southwest Missouri in the United States. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the county's population was 39,703. In the 2010 census the counties population was 51,675 Its county seat is Forsyth....
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is one mile southwest of Branson, Missouri
Branson, Missouri
Branson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....
and a few yards west of the old downtown area of Hollister, Missouri
Hollister, Missouri
Hollister is a city in Taney County, Missouri, United States. The population was 4,426 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Branson, Missouri Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
.
History
M. Graham Clark Field was originally developed as a private airport by the College of the OzarksCollege of the Ozarks
College of the Ozarks is a private, Christian liberal-arts college, with its campus at Point Lookout near Branson and Hollister, Missouri, United States. It is south of Springfield on a campus, overlooking Lake Taneycomo...
for use in their aviation science department, and was originally officially associated with the village of Point Lookout, Missouri
Point Lookout, Missouri
Point Lookout is an unincorporated community in Taney County, Missouri, United States, near Branson and Hollister. A college town, it is next to Lake Taneycomo and is home to the College of the Ozarks. College of the Ozarks hosts the NAIA Division II basketball tournament annually.Point Lookout is...
, a small village on a bluff overlooking the White River Valley which was later completely bought out and overwhelmed by the development of the college. The airport identifier, PLK, was based on the name of the town officially associated with the facility under a federal grant through which the college originally developed the airport.
The airport was named after M. Graham Clark, the president of the college at the time the airport was originally constructed.
College of the Ozarks closed down its aviation science department in 2003. Shortly thereafter, the airport was donated by the college to Taney County so that the Branson and Hollister community would not lose its important general aviation airport.
A private entity had contracted with the college to provide commercial airline service to Clark Field, serving Branson, in the late-1990s, but the venture failed and the terminal building, fire department building, and associated ramp were turned over to the college. The airport currently does not have any scheduled commercial airline service. Since the opening of the newly developed Branson Airport
Branson Airport
Branson Airport is a public use airport located eight nautical miles south-southeast of the central business district of Branson, a city in Taney County, Missouri, United States. It is privately owned by Branson Airport, LLC.Although most U.S...
and the construction of new terminal facilities at the Springfield-Branson National Airport there is no expectation of airline service at Clark Field.
Clark Field is operated by Taney County as a public general aviation airport.
The FBO is operated by the Taney County Airport Board. Repair services are available from Branson Aircraft Repair, LLC. Helicopter charter, touring, and flight training if offered, as well.
Facilities and aircraft
Taney County Airport covers an area of 40 acres (16.2 ha) at an elevationElevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface ....
of 940 feet (287 m) above mean sea level. The only runway is runway 11-29. A GPS Approach is published for both runways. The runway is also equipped with a medium intensity approach lighting system. The runway is 3738 feet (1,139.3 m) in length and 100 feet (30.5 m) feet wide.
For the 12-month period ending November 30, 2005, the airport had 11,200 aircraft operations, an average of 30 per day: 96% general aviation
General aviation
General aviation is one of the two categories of civil aviation. It refers to all flights other than military and scheduled airline and regular cargo flights, both private and commercial. General aviation flights range from gliders and powered parachutes to large, non-scheduled cargo jet flights...
, 4% air taxi
Air taxi
An air taxi is an air charter passenger or cargo aircraft which operates on an on-demand basis.-Regulation:In the United States, air taxi and air charter operations are governed by Part 135 of the Federal Aviation Regulations , unlike the larger scheduled air carriers which are governed by more...
, <1% military
Military aviation
Military aviation is the use of aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling warfare, including national airlift capacity to provide logistical supply to forces stationed in a theater or along a front. Air power includes the national means of conducting such...
. At that time there were 51 aircraft based at this airport: 73% single-engine
Aircraft engine
An aircraft engine is the component of the propulsion system for an aircraft that generates mechanical power. Aircraft engines are almost always either lightweight piston engines or gas turbines...
, 25% multi-engine and 2% helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
.
Prevailing Winds
The direction of the prevailing winds are typically from the north or from the southwest. The runway was constructed west-northwest and east-southeast due to the terrain, creating a prevailing crosswind. This "built-in crosswind" was considered a desired attribute when the airport was used to train pilots, allowing them to obtain extensive crosswind procedure training, although there were several relatively minor crosswind accidents.General Aviation Traffic
Clark Field has at times been one of the busiest general aviation airports in the region. It was at one time ranked the fourth busiest airport by number of aircraft operations in the state of Missouri behind Lambert-St. Louis International AirportLambert-St. Louis International Airport
Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is a Class B international airport serving Greater St. Louis. It is located approximately northwest of downtown St. Louis in unincorporated St. Louis County between Berkeley and Bridgeton. It is the largest and busiest airport in the state with 250 daily...
, Kansas City Downtown Airport, and Spirit of St. Louis Airport
Spirit of St. Louis Airport
Spirit of St. Louis Airport is a public airport located 17 miles west of the central business district of St. Louis, in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is owned by St. Louis County.- Facilities and aircraft :Spirit of St...
, outranking Kansas City International Airport
Kansas City International Airport
Kansas City International Airport , originally named Mid-Continent International Airport, is a public airport located 15 miles northwest of the central business district of Kansas City, in Platte County, Missouri, United States. In 2008, 10,469,892 passengers used the airport...
and Springfield-Branson National Airport. The airport serves helicopter operations. Also, there is a substantial antique airplane collector on the field and the field is popular with other operators flying aircraft without radios. There is no control tower as it is an uncontrolled field. It is not uncommon for there to be several aircraft in the pattern at the same time.
Name Confusion
The airport was named after a person, M. Graham Clark, and the donation agreement between the college and the county calls for the airport to always be named M. Graham Clark Field, though it is usually referred to as Clark Field, or simply as "Clark." The official Facilities Directory lists the airport under the name of the town it was originally officially associated with, Point Lookout, so some pilots will refer to the airport as "Point Lookout." The Kansas City Sectional Chart depicts the airport as "Clark-Taney County", but on two lines, so some pilots refer to it as "Clark County." Some local pilots refer to it as "Taney County." Some transient pilots associating the airport with the principal city of Branson refer to it as "Branson," despite the proximity of the newly developed Branson Airport about eight miles to the southeast. Most recently, there has been a proposal to officially rename the airport as "M. Graham Clark Branson Downtown Taney County Airport" as a marketing move to attract some of the low end corporate traffic from nearby Boone County Airport or the Branson Airport. Although the airport board has never adopted the proposal, many local pilots pushing for the change have been referring to the airport as "Branson Downtown" or simply "Downtown". The use of so many names for the same airport has also been known to cause radio confusion in dense traffic. It is not unusual for approaching traffic making an initial call to refer to the airport as "Clark Point Lookout Branson Downtown Taney County . . ." in an attempt to be specific, and use a shorter name on subsequent calls.Accident History
This airport was free of any fatal accident history for several decades, but there have been a few fatal accidents associated with the field in recent years, including:- A homebuilt Tri-Q2Rutan Quickie-See also:-External links:***...
from Florida crashed shortly after departing the field in 2006. The cause was thought to be due to structural problems with the aircraft. - A Piper PA-34 SenecaPiper PA-34 SenecaThe Piper PA-34 Seneca is an American twin-engined light aircraft, produced by Piper Aircraft since 1971 and still in production in 2011.The Seneca is primarily used for personal and business flying.-Development:...
based in Texas crashed and burned after departure a few miles from the field (thought to be attempting to return to the airport for unknown reasons) in low weather, killing all four occupants, in 2006. - A Piper Cherokee Six (PA-32) also based in Texas crashed in a ravine and burned, killing all five occupants, after a balked take-off that overran the east end of the field in 2004.
- Probably the most famous accident associated with Clark Field was the crash of a CitationJet (Cessna-525, or CJ1) on approach to the airport in very low winter weather in 1999. Approach Control had lost radar contact with the aircraft at 2,100 feet msl five miles from the airport. The crash occurred on a mountaintop about four miles west of the airport at about 1,100 feet msl where many observers noted that the crash site was "within 50 feet of the centerline of the instrument approach" but at an altitude several hundred feet below what was specified for that portion of the approach. There was significant public controversy associated with this accident. The aircraft was owned by the College of the Ozarks (which owned the airport at the time) and six employees or students of the college were killed. The pilot was also the airport manager and an administrator associated with the aviation science department of the college. Pilot fatigue was cited as a factor in the accident by the NTSB, possibly aggravated by toxicological factors and an alleged "feud" that the pilot was having with the FAA in the days leading up to the accident. It is thought that this accident was a factor in the decision by the college to phase out its aviation science department and donate the airport to the county.
All other accidents have been comparatively minor, including a few gear-up accidents, several incidents involving mechanical problems, a few tailwheel failures or ground looped landings, and a few crosswind related accidents involving student pilots. There have also been a few aircraft over-run the end of the runway, including a chartered Beechcraft King Air
Beechcraft King Air
The Beechcraft King Air family is part of a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by the Beech Aircraft Corporation...
in the mid-1990s.
See also
- Branson AirportBranson AirportBranson Airport is a public use airport located eight nautical miles south-southeast of the central business district of Branson, a city in Taney County, Missouri, United States. It is privately owned by Branson Airport, LLC.Although most U.S...
- Branson West AirportBranson West AirportBranson West Airport, also known as Branson West Municipal Airport, is a city-owned, public-use airport located two nautical miles west of the central business district of the City of Branson West, in Stone County, Missouri, United States...
- Boone County Airport (Arkansas)
External links
- Point Lookout: M. Graham Clark - Taney County (PLK) at Missouri DOT Airport Directory