Departure
93%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Salina Municipal Airport (KSLN) lies on the flat plains of central Kansas, three nautical miles southwest of downtown Salina, on the site of the former Schilling Air Force Base. It offers an exceptionally long primary runway, a control tower, and instrument approaches, making it a notable stop for both general aviation and the light airline service that still calls at the field.
Salina Municipal Airport, also known historically and still commercially as Salina Regional Airport, is a public-use field owned by the Salina Airport Authority. It combines general aviation activity with subsidised Essential Air Service passenger flights and is home to the Kansas State University Salina Department of Aviation, which trains professional pilots on the field. For the simulator pilot, its huge former military runway, control tower operation and instrument approaches make it an interesting and useful waypoint on cross-country flights through the Kansas plains.
The airport sits about three nautical miles southwest of the central business district of Salina, Saline County, Kansas. It is served by a control tower and by Kansas City Center for en-route traffic, and Wichita Radio provides flight service in the area.
Salina Municipal has four physical runway pairs. The longest, 17/35, is a hard-surfaced, lit runway of 12,303 feet, with an ILS serving runway 35. Runway 12/30 is a hard-surfaced, lit runway of roughly 6,500 feet. Runway 18/36 is a hard-surfaced runway of about 4,300 to 4,484 feet, and the shortest pair, 04/22, is a hard-surfaced runway of around 3,681 to 3,761 feet. Field elevation is 1,263 feet.
The tower and common traffic advisory frequency is 119.3 MHz, with ground control on 121.9 MHz. ATIS broadcasts on 120.15 MHz, and UNICOM is available on 122.95 MHz. Kansas City Center works overlying traffic on 134.9 MHz, and Wichita Radio can be reached on 122.4 MHz for flight service. An Army National Guard operations frequency of 49.95 MHz is also published for the field. The airport has an ILS, and published instrument approaches include the ILS or LOC to runway 35, an NDB approach to runway 35, a VOR approach to runway 17, and RNAV (GPS) approaches to runways 12, 17, 30 and 35.
The airfield began life as Smoky Hill Army Airfield, built on 2,600 acres southwest of Salina in the months after Pearl Harbor. Construction started in May 1942 with the help of nearly 7,000 workers, and the field was activated on 1 September 1942 under II Bomber Command, Second Air Force. It served as a Second Phase heavy bomber operational training unit station, with the 346th Bombardment Group flying B-17 Flying Fortresses, later joined by the 366th and 400th Bombardment Groups training on B-17s and B-24 Liberators respectively; the all African-American 49th Aviation Squadron arrived in April 1943 to provide ground support. The base passed to the Fifteenth Air Force and Strategic Air Command in 1946, was renamed Smoky Hill Air Force Base in January 1948, closed briefly at the end of the 1940s, then reactivated in August 1951 during the Korean War hosting the 310th and 40th Bombardment Wings. In March 1957 it was renamed Schilling Air Force Base in honour of Colonel David C. Schilling, before closing between 1965 and 1967 as part of wider Defense Department reductions. The airport later gained aviation fame as the takeoff and landing point for Steve Fossett's Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which completed the first nonstop, non-refuelled solo circumnavigation of the earth from 28 February to 3 March 2005, and returned in March 2006 to set a new closed-circuit distance record. These flights are commemorated at Fossett Plaza on the airport grounds. Scheduled airline service dates back to the early 1930s, when United States Airways flew Metal Aircraft Flamingos on a Denver-Kansas City mail route calling at Salina; later operators included Continental Airlines with Douglas DC-3s from 1949, Central Airlines from 1961, and Frontier Airlines, which introduced Boeing 737 jet service to Denver and Chicago in 1978.
Salina Municipal Airport remains active with general aviation, flight training and light commercial service. SkyWest Airlines operates as United Express under the Essential Air Service program, providing the airport's scheduled passenger flights. The airport is home to the Kansas State University Salina Department of Aviation, offering Professional Pilot and related degree programmes, and its long runway and central US location have earned it the nickname "America's Fuel Stop" for corporate and private jets stopping to refuel.