Wilbarger County Airport


Wilbarger County Airport is a county-owned, public-use airport in Wilbarger County, Texas, United States. It is located four nautical miles north of the central business district of Vernon, Texas. This airport is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation facility.

History

Activated on September 23, 1942 as Vernon Airport. Conducted basic flying training until inactivated March 31, 1945. Primary use was basic flying training of flight cadets. Flying training was performed with Fairchild PT-19s as the primary trainer. Also had several PT-17 Stearmans and a few P-40 Warhawks assigned. Also was an auxiliary to Frederick Army Airfield, Oklahoma.
Transferred to Army Corps of Engineers on May 5, 1945. The airfield was turned over to civil control in February 1947 though the War Assets Administration.
At some point a large hangar was relocated from the nearby Victory Field onto the airport. It served the dual purpose of transient hangar and Terminal until 1974 when a new terminal building was constructed. The hangar is still used for transient aircraft storage.

Facilities and aircraft

Wilbarger County Airport covers an area of 600 acres at an elevation of 1,265 feet above mean sea level. It has two asphalt paved runways: 2/20 is 5,099 by 100 feet and 16/34 is 4,304 by 80 feet.
For the 12-month period ending July 10, 2008, the airport had 9,100 aircraft operations, an average of 24 per day: 99% general aviation and 1% military. At that time there were 20 aircraft based at this airport: 75% single-engine, 20% multi-engine, and 5% ultralight.