Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Alliance Municipal Airport lies three miles southeast of Alliance, Nebraska, on the site of a former World War II Army Air Forces training airfield that once supported paratroop and glider operations. Today it is a quiet general aviation field with three sealed runways, including one over 9,000 feet long, and limited scheduled airline service. Its long, wide runways and remote sandhills setting make it a distinctive stop for VFR pilots crossing the northern Plains.
Alliance Municipal Airport serves the city of Alliance in Box Butte County, Nebraska, and is owned by the City of Alliance. It occupies the site of the wartime Alliance Army Airfield, and its unusually long runways—a legacy of that military past—make it stand out among general aviation fields in the region. Denver Air Connection operates subsidized Essential Air Service flights to Denver, but the field otherwise functions as a general aviation airport with a modest number of based aircraft.
The airport sits three miles southeast of the city of Alliance, Nebraska, amid low rolling sandhills to the east and open plain to the north, west and south. Snake Creek runs through the southern part of the airport property. The field is non-towered, with air traffic advisories handled by UNICOM rather than a control tower.
Alliance Municipal has three physical runways, all hard-surfaced and lit where noted. Runway 12/30 is the longest at 9,170 feet, is lit, and carries an ILS on the 30 approach. Runway 17/35 is 6,306 feet long. Runway 08/26 is 6,184 feet long and is lit. Field elevation is 3,924 feet.
Pilots should monitor the CTAF/UNICOM frequency of 123 MHz for airport advisories. Automated weather is broadcast on the ASOS frequency of 135.075 MHz. En route, Denver Center can be reached on 127.95 MHz or via remote radio outlet on 122.3 MHz. An ILS is available for runway 30.
The airport is located three miles southeast of the city of Alliance, with Snake Creek crossing the southern part of the airport site and low sandhills forming a visible feature to the east of the field, useful for orientation when inbound from that direction.
Alliance Municipal Airport began life as Alliance Army Airfield, authorized on 14 April 1942 and built between summer 1942 and August 1943 by the United States Army Air Forces as one of eleven wartime training airfields in Nebraska. The 4,205-acre site was developed with a railroad spur, power plant, waterworks, sewage system and over 35,000 feet of runways, and was dedicated before a crowd of 65,000 on 22 August 1943. It served as a training base for Army paratroops and troop-carrier air crews, home to as many as 14,000 paratroopers who trained using C-47 Skytrain transports and CG-3/CG-4 Waco gliders, the surrounding sandhills being considered favourable for parachute landings. A succession of troop carrier groups trained at the field through 1942 to 1944, including the 403d, 434th, 436th, 439th, 440th, 442d, 349th, 443d and 10th Troop Carrier Groups, most going on to serve in England with the Ninth Air Force or in the Pacific and China-Burma-India theatres. Army glider infantry, parachute infantry and airborne engineer units also trained there before deploying to Europe. Construction brought over 5,000 workers to the area, including Sioux workers from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations, Mexican workers from the Southwest, and African American workers from Wichita and Kansas City, and a federal housing project known locally as "Chimney Town" was built to ease the resulting shortage. The airfield passed briefly to Second Air Force training use in autumn 1944, and after the war the government removed the railroad tracks and auctioned off 240 buildings before finally transferring the land and remaining buildings to the City of Alliance on 16 July 1953, establishing it as Alliance Municipal Airport. Western Air Lines began DC-3 service to Alliance in the 1940s, with Frontier Airlines taking over in 1959 and operating Twin Otter flights until 1980.
Alliance Municipal Airport today covers around 3,500 acres and functions primarily as a general aviation field, recording roughly 13,700 aircraft operations a year with 53 based aircraft. Denver Air Connection provides subsidized scheduled passenger service to Denver under the Essential Air Service program, operating from the airport's terminal building.
