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Marfa Municipal Airport lies three miles north of the small West Texas town of Marfa, in Presidio County, and is best known among sailplane pilots as a nationally recognised soaring site. Its three runways, remnants of a wartime training airfield, sit at a lofty 4,833 feet amid the high desert of the Trans-Pecos region, making it a distinctive and slightly demanding destination for visiting VFR traffic.
Marfa Municipal Airport is a small, uncontrolled general-aviation field serving the town of Marfa in far West Texas. It is owned by Presidio County and the City of Marfa, and today its main claim to fame is gliding: the airport was named the 15th National Landmark of Soaring by the National Soaring Museum in 2008, and Marfa Gliders operates sailplane training, rides and a spring soaring camp from the field. For a sim pilot, the appeal lies in the combination of high desert scenery, thin high-altitude air, and three very different runway surfaces left over from the airfield's military training past.
The airport sits three miles north of Marfa in Presidio County, Texas, within the airspace overseen by Albuquerque Center. There is no control tower, so the field operates as an uncontrolled aerodrome with traffic self-announcing on the common frequency; pilots working with air traffic services or filing flight plans can reach San Angelo Radio for flight service.
Marfa Municipal has three physical runways. Runway 13/31 is the longest, 6,498 feet of hard surface with runway lighting, aligned northwest-southeast. Runway 04/22 is 5,308 feet of hard surface without lighting. Runway 09/27 is a shorter 2,822-foot dirt strip. None of the runways is served by an ILS.
Traffic at Marfa should monitor and call on the CTAF/UNICOM frequency 122.8 MHz, which also serves as the UNICOM. An automated weather observation is broadcast on the AWOS frequency 134.025 MHz. A remote air-to-ground/Albuquerque Center frequency of 135.875 MHz is also listed for the field, and San Angelo Radio flight service can be reached on 122.1 MHz for flight plan or advisory purposes.
Marfa is an uncontrolled field, and pilots should make position calls on the 122.8 MHz CTAF/UNICOM frequency when approaching, joining and operating in the pattern. No specific noise abatement procedures have been published by the airport manager, so standard good-airmanship practice applies when overflying the surrounding countryside and the town of Marfa itself.
The airport lies about three miles north of the town of Marfa, which itself sits amid the open, high desert landscape of Presidio County and provides the principal visual reference for inbound traffic. The site of the original wartime Marfa Army Air Field, now abandoned, lies well to the east of the town and should not be confused with the current municipal airport.
Marfa Municipal Airport occupies runways originally built for World War Two training use, later handed over to civil operation under Presidio County and the City of Marfa. It is distinct from the original Marfa Airport (Marfa Army Air Field), which closed in 1945 and lay east of the town; that former airfield, now abandoned, was where Trans-Texas Airways DC-3s called until 1960, after which no scheduled airline service returned to Marfa. In April 2008 the National Soaring Museum designated Marfa Municipal Airport the 15th National Landmark of Soaring, recognising its long association with gliding activity in the clear, thermally active air of the Trans-Pecos.
Marfa Municipal remains a general-aviation field with no scheduled airline service. In the year ending May 2021 it recorded around 6,000 aircraft operations, averaging some 115 per week, and had 27 based aircraft: 20 single-engine, one multi-engine and six gliders. Marfa Gliders operates from the airport, offering sailplane flight training and glider rides throughout the year along with a spring soaring camp, sustaining the field's reputation as a notable soaring destination.
