Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Boca Raton Airport is a busy general-aviation field in Palm Beach County, Florida, sited two miles northwest of downtown Boca Raton alongside Florida Atlantic University and Interstate 95. Operated by the Boca Raton Airport Authority, it handles a heavy mix of corporate, recreational and flight-training traffic and traces its origins back to a 1936 civil field that became a major World War II Army airfield. Today it offers a single hard-surfaced runway, an FAA contract tower, two full-service FBOs and a customs facility, making it a popular destination for visiting sim pilots flying the South Florida coast.
Boca Raton Airport (KBCT) is a state-owned, public-use general aviation airport serving Boca Raton and the surrounding Palm Beach County area. It sits immediately next to Florida Atlantic University and Interstate 95, and is governed by a seven-member Boca Raton Airport Authority appointed jointly by the City of Boca Raton and the Palm Beach County Commission. The field is a mix of recreational flying, corporate jet traffic and flight training, and it also serves as a reliever and diversion field when flight restrictions are in place around nearby Mar-a-Lago.
The airport lies about two miles northwest of the Boca Raton central business district, bordered by Florida Atlantic University and Interstate 95. It operates with an FAA contract tower providing controlled airspace during its published operating hours. The field sits between the larger Palm Beach International and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airports in the South Florida coastal corridor, a busy area of general aviation and airline traffic that pilots should be mindful of when transiting to or from Boca Raton.
Boca Raton Airport has a single physical runway, 05/23, of hard surface construction and lit for night operations. The database records slightly different lengths for each direction, 5,577 ft for runway 05 and 5,895 ft for runway 23. Field elevation is 10 ft, and there is no ILS approach available.
Boca Raton Tower operates on 118.425 MHz, which also serves as the field's CTAF. Ground control is on 121.8 MHz, and clearance delivery shares that same 121.8 MHz frequency. Palm Beach Approach can be reached on 125.2 MHz and Palm Beach Departure on 127.35 MHz. The automated weather observing system (AWOS-3) broadcasts on 121.125 MHz. There is no ILS at the field.
Boca Raton Airport is served by an FAA contract tower, with the control tower staffed from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., outside of which pilots should expect uncontrolled operations on the CTAF. Pilots operating aircraft with wingspans greater than 79 feet should be aware that, during busy periods, they are likely to experience increased arrival and departure delays.
The airport is a useful visual landmark in its own right, sitting immediately alongside the Florida Atlantic University campus and directly adjacent to Interstate 95, both of which provide clear references for inbound pilots. It lies about two miles northwest of downtown Boca Raton, making the city centre another helpful reference point when navigating to the field from the coast or inland.
Boca Raton Airport was established in 1936. With the expansion of American air power ahead of and during the Second World War, the site was developed into Boca Raton Army Airfield from 1942, with much of the land acquired through eminent domain from Japanese American farmers of the former Yamato Colony. Most of the military airfield was deactivated in 1946, though over 800 acres were retained afterward as the Boca Raton Air Force Auxiliary Field, and part of the site was even used in the 1950s for a classified biological project. In 1959 the remaining land and a single rebuilt runway, out of the three original wartime runways, passed to the City of Boca Raton and the State of Florida, becoming the airport as it exists today, while the rest of the former base became the campus of Florida Atlantic University. The airport's first control tower opened in 2000, named after Philip Modder, the Airport Authority chairman who championed its creation as corporate jet traffic grew. Hurricane Wilma caused more than 12 million dollars of hangar damage in October 2005, and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility opened at the field in May 2018.
The airport today serves recreational, corporate and flight-training activity, with the Boca Raton Airport Authority citing well over 80,000 operations a year. It hosts two full-service fixed-base operators, Signature Flight Support and Atlantic Aviation, alongside 125 T-hangars and an FAA contract tower staffed from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. The Burton D. Morgan School of Aeronautics, part of Lynn University, is based on the field, and a customs facility allows processing of international arrivals. An observation area is also open to plane-spotters and photographers.
