Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Knox County Regional Airport (KRKD) serves the midcoast Maine communities around Rockland, sitting on the shoreline south of the town in Owls Head. Built as a wartime naval air facility, it retains a pair of long paved runways, an ILS approach, and a mix of scheduled Essential Air Service, air taxi and general aviation traffic, making it a useful and historically interesting destination for visiting simulator pilots.
Knox County Regional Airport is a county-owned, public-use field serving the residents and summer visitors of midcoast Maine. It lies in the town of Owls Head, just south of Rockland, and combines scheduled commercial service, air taxi and freight operations to Penobscot Bay's island communities with a strong general aviation and summer private-jet presence. Its wartime origins as a naval air facility and the presence of an aviation museum on part of the old airfield add historical interest for the visiting VFR pilot.
The airport is located in Owls Head, Knox County, Maine, about three nautical miles south of the central business district of Rockland, on the Penobscot Bay coast. Approach and departure control in the area is provided by Brunswick Approach/Departure on 123.8 MHz.
Knox County Regional has two paved, lit hard-surfaced runway pairs. Runway 13/31 is 5,000 feet long, with an ILS approach serving runway 13. Runway 03/21 is 3,971 feet long. Field elevation is 49 feet.
Traffic in the vicinity works Brunswick Approach/Departure on 123.8 MHz. Automated weather is broadcast on the AWOS-3 frequency of 119.025 MHz. UNICOM/CTAF is on 123.05 MHz. An ILS is available for runway 13.
The field sits on the shoreline south of Rockland's town centre, in Owls Head, making the Penobscot Bay coastline a useful lead-in feature when approaching from over the water. Ash Point Road runs close to the runway 13 threshold and is crossed on the approach for landing.
The airfield was built during the Second World War and became locally known as the Ash Point Naval Air Station, officially operating as Rockland Naval Auxiliary Air Facility from 15 April 1943 until 1 February 1946. It was one of a string of military airfields along the Maine coast supporting operations from Naval Air Station Brunswick, and was originally laid out with a triangle of three runways. The third runway, numbered 17/35, was discontinued in the 1970s; its remains now lie beneath the Owls Head Transportation Museum, which is sited on part of the old airfield and holds a collection of antique autos, aircraft and engines, with summer gatherings for enthusiasts. After the war the airport was run by the City of Rockland until Knox County acquired it on 4 December 1968, renaming it Knox County Regional Airport. Since then the county has developed the field, extended its two remaining runways and installed an Instrument Landing System. On 30 May 1979 Downeast Flight 46 crashed on approach after descending below the minimum allowable altitude in poor weather, killing 16 of the 17 people on board.
Knox County Regional Airport handles scheduled Essential Air Service passenger flights, currently operated by Cape Air to Boston, alongside significant air taxi and freight traffic, including mail and cargo service to the island communities of Matinicus, North Haven and Vinalhaven. Penobscot Island Air is based at the field. In summer the airport is among Maine's busiest, with substantial private jet traffic bringing visitors to the Penobscot Bay summer colonies; the increase in traffic has led to a voluntary night curfew on arrivals and departures between 10:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. The airport supports a mix of based aircraft, predominantly single-engine types, alongside a small number of multi-engine, jet and glider aircraft.