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Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional Airport, still listed in places under its historic name Hernando County Airport, lies among rolling countryside some six nautical miles southwest of Brooksville in west-central Florida. A former World War II bomber training field turned busy general-aviation and business-aviation airport, it offers two long hard-surfaced runways, an ILS approach and a tower-controlled environment that make it a straightforward and interesting VFR or IFR destination for the simulator pilot working the Tampa Bay area.
Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional Airport, formerly Hernando County Airport, is a joint civil-military public airport in Hernando County, Florida, owned by the county and situated roughly 45 miles north of Tampa. It combines a strong general-aviation and flight-training presence with charter and executive jet traffic, and its wartime origins as an Army Air Forces training field give it a good deal of aviation history for a field of its size.
The airport sits about 6 nautical miles southwest of the Brooksville central business district, within the broader Tampa Bay airspace environment and under the umbrella of Tampa Approach/Departure control. It lies within the Jacksonville ARTCC's area of responsibility for sectional charting purposes, with St Petersburg serving as the tie-in flight service station. A Level I FAA contractor-operated air traffic control tower has been in operation at the field since October 2012, the first time the airport has had a tower since its wartime days as Brooksville Army Airfield.
The airport has two paved runways. Runway 09/27 is 6,948 feet long with a hard surface and runway lighting; the 09 threshold is equipped with an ILS. Runway 03/21 is 4,978 feet long, also hard-surfaced and lit. Field elevation is 66 feet.
Air traffic control/approach-departure is available on 125.3 MHz (Tampa Approach/Departure). Clearance delivery is on 119.125 MHz (Tampa Clearance Delivery). The automated weather observation system (ASOS) broadcasts on 134.725 MHz. CTAF/UNICOM is on 123 MHz. Additional remote outlets serve St Petersburg Radio on 122.3 MHz and an Army National Guard operations frequency on 40.9 MHz. An ILS is available to runway 09.
Traffic patterns at the airport are flown to the left for all runway directions. With a control tower in operation, arriving and departing traffic should expect to work with air traffic control rather than operate on a purely self-announced basis.
The airfield opened in November 1942 as Brooksville Army Airfield, built by the United States Army Air Forces as part of the Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics, a tactical combat simulation school headquartered at Orlando Army Air Base and dedicated to developing aerial warfare tactics. Brooksville served AAFSAT as a heavy and medium bomber training base, hosting the 1st Bombardment Squadron flying B-17 Flying Fortresses from December 1942, along with the 5th, 99th and 430th Bombardment Squadrons flying B-24 Liberators, B-25 Mitchells and B-26 Marauders through early 1944. In March 1944 the field passed to Third Air Force as an auxiliary of MacDill and Drew Army Airfields, coming under the 377th Army Air Forces Base Unit and becoming a B-17 replacement training base, also used as an overflow and emergency landing field for crews training at MacDill. With Germany's defeat approaching, the airfield was notified in April 1945 of its planned inactivation, which followed on 30 June that year. Declared surplus in late 1945, its equipment was disposed of by the War Assets Administration between 1946 and 1947, and the land and remaining facilities were deeded to the city of Brooksville under General Services Administration quitclaim deeds restricting the site to public airport use. The city later transferred the property to Hernando County, which remains the owner. In October 2012 the county commission voted to rename the field Brooksville-Tampa Regional Airport as part of a wider rebranding of county facilities, a decision that proved controversial locally.
The airport today is a joint civil-military public facility handling a substantial volume of general aviation traffic together with charter and executive aircraft, though it does not have scheduled airline service. In the twelve months to December 2017 it recorded around 78,000 aircraft operations, averaging 214 per day, with the mix dominated by general aviation alongside a smaller proportion of military and air-taxi movements; 181 aircraft were then based there, spanning single and multi-engine types, helicopters, gliders, military aircraft and jets. The field has held a Level I FAA contractor-operated control tower since October 2012. Fuel available includes 100LL, and the airport offers major airframe and powerplant repair capability alongside hangar and tie-down storage.
