Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Corvallis Municipal Airport (KCVO) is a busy general-aviation field in Oregon's Willamette Valley, about five miles southwest of downtown Corvallis and home to Oregon State University's flying club. Built during the Second World War as an Army Air Forces bomber training base, it retains two long paved runways, a full instrument approach suite including an ILS, and a friendly non-towered operating environment that makes it a popular VFR and IFR training destination.
Corvallis Municipal Airport sits in the Willamette Valley a few miles south of the city of Corvallis, Oregon, and serves as the local general-aviation field for a university town of around 55,000 people. It began life as a wartime Army airfield and today functions as a busy non-towered airport used heavily for flight training, with an on-field FBO, a local flying club, and enough instrument approaches to keep IFR students and visiting pilots occupied. For a simulator pilot, the mix of a full ILS runway, a shorter crosswind strip, an on-field VOR, and straightforward left-hand traffic patterns makes it an approachable but genuinely interesting field to fly into.
KCVO lies in Class G airspace at the surface with a Class E overlay whose floor is 700 feet AGL, so arriving and departing traffic is largely self-announced on the common frequency rather than controlled locally. The airport sits on the boundary between the Seattle and Klamath Falls sectional charts and appears on the L-1 IFR enroute low-altitude chart. It is about 23 nautical miles north of Eugene (KEUG) and roughly 72 nautical miles south of Portland (KPDX), and is located approximately five miles southwest of downtown Corvallis, off Highway 99W on Airport Avenue, in unincorporated Benton County.
The airport has two physical runways. Runway 17/35 is the primary strip at 5,892 feet, hard-surfaced and lit, with an ILS serving runway 17. Runway 10/28 is a shorter hard-surfaced, lit crosswind runway, 3,536 feet on the 10 threshold and 3,326 feet on the 28 threshold. A third runway, formerly oriented northeast-southwest, has been closed and is now used as an emergency-vehicle driver training area rather than for flight operations.
The AWOS-3 automated weather observing frequency is 135.775 MHz. CTAF/UNICOM is 123.0 MHz, operated by the field's FBO. Cascade Approach/Departure works arrivals and departures on 127.5 MHz on the ground and 119.6 MHz once airborne during the day; at night, IFR traffic works Seattle Center on 125.8 MHz. McMinnville Flight Service can be reached via the Eugene RCO on 122.3 MHz or the Salem RCO on 122.6 MHz. A VOR named CVO, on 115.4 MHz, sits on the airport and provides guidance for four Victor airways as well as helping pilots set up 45-degree pattern entries. Seven instrument approaches serve the field, including an ILS, NDB, GPS and VOR/DME approaches to runway 17, GPS and VOR/DME approaches to runway 35, and a VOR-A approach that lines up reasonably well with runway 27 for those who can descend quickly enough, with a circling minimum descent altitude of 1,400 feet. Two SIDs and an obstacle departure procedure are published, both flyable without high climb performance.
All runways use standard left-hand traffic patterns with 45-degree entries, flown at 1,046 feet MSL, which equates to about 800 feet AGL. Runway 17 is the calm-wind runway, used when winds are below five knots. Runways 17 and 35 have VASIs, and runway 10 (referred to locally by its former designation, runway 9) has a PAPI; all of these, along with the runway lighting, are pilot-controlled via the CTAF using the standard 7-5-3 click sequence. Arriving VFR traffic should monitor the AWOS, announce ten miles or so out on the CTAF, and call again on the 45, downwind, base and final. There are no formal noise abatement procedures, though pilots are asked to remain at least 1,500 feet MSL when overflying the city of Corvallis just north of the field. Departures can be flown straight out or with a 45-degree left turn once clear of the pattern.
The airport is surrounded mainly by farmland with few obstructions, which also makes it a reasonable spot to plan an off-field landing should an engine problem occur nearby. A small private airstrip lies about a mile off the extended centreline of runway 17, slightly to the right of the departure path, and is a useful visual cue on departure. The city of Corvallis itself, with Oregon State University, lies close by to the north and serves as the main landmark for orientation, while Highway 99W and Airport Avenue mark the approach to the airport from the road network.
The airfield was built during the Second World War by the United States Army Air Forces as Corvallis Army Airfield, used for bomber crew training; the original wartime hangar remains in use today. After the war the field passed to the City of Corvallis. Airline service began in 1947 with West Coast Airlines DC-3s, and its successor Hughes Airwest continued to operate Fairchild F27 turboprops into the field until withdrawing them in 1973, after which airline service ended. A third runway, once oriented northeast-southwest, has since been closed and repurposed as an emergency-vehicle driver training area.
Corvallis Municipal Airport remains an active general-aviation field with more than 50,000 annual operations, overwhelmingly general aviation traffic, and around 130 based aircraft ranging from single and multi-engine piston types to helicopters, a glider and ultralights. Corvallis Aero Service is the sole FBO, offering full-service and self-serve 100LL and Jet A fuel, aircraft maintenance including avionics work, fixed-wing and helicopter flight instruction, a courtesy car, rental cars, a pilot lounge and flight-planning facilities, and it also operates the UNICOM. The Oregon State Flying Club is based on the field. Aircraft storage is provided through more than a hundred T-hangars, and the airport is equipped with a rotating beacon, lighted wind cones, a wind T and a segmented circle.
