Wharton Regional Airport is a public airport

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 five miles (8 km) southwest 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 Wharton

Wharton, Texas

Wharton is a city in Wharton County, Texas, United States. The population was 9,237 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Wharton County and is located on the Colorado River of Texas just south of U.S...

, a city in Wharton County, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is owned by the City of Wharton.

Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier

Location identifier

A location identifier is a symbolic representation for the name and the location of an airport, navigation aid, or weather station, and is used for manned air traffic control facilities in air traffic control, telecommunications, computer programming, weather reports, and related services.-ICAO...

 for the FAA

Federal Aviation Administration

The Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...

 and IATA

International Air Transport Association

The International Air Transport Association is an international industry trade group of airlines headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where the International Civil Aviation Organization is also headquartered. The executive offices are at the Geneva Airport in SwitzerlandIATA's mission is to...

, Wharton Regional is assigned ARM by the FAA and WHT by the IATA (which assigned ARM to Armidale Airport

Armidale Airport

Armidale Airport is an airport serving Armidale, a city in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is located from the town centre, on New England Highway. The airport is operated by the Armidale Dumaresq Shire Council.- Facilities :...

 in Armidale, New South Wales

Armidale, New South Wales

Armidale is a city in the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. Armidale Dumaresq Shire had a population of 19,485 people according to the 2006 census. It is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands region...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

). The airport's former FAA indentifier was 5R5.

Facilities and aircraft

Wharton Regional Airport covers an area of 124 acres (50.2 ha) which contains one asphalt

Asphalt

Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...

 paved runway

Runway

According to ICAO a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and take-off of aircraft." Runways may be a man-made surface or a natural surface .- Orientation and dimensions :Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, which is generally one tenth...

 (14/32) measuring 5,004 x 75 ft (1,525 x 23 m). For the 12-month period ending July 28, 2005, the airport had 11,800 aircraft operations, an average of 32 per day: 99% 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...

and 1% military.

It is also used by the South Texas Balloon Launch Team (an amateur radio balloon group based out of Houston) for free float balloon launches. The team is about to launch BLT-27 on Saturday, August 20 at 10am. Full info on all the BLTs can be found at http://www.w5acm.net and scroll down for the links to the BLT flights!