Morgantown Municipal Airport lands $1.4M in funding

Aug. 04--A lot of green will taxi into Morgantown Municipal Airport later this month.

The airport is receiving a $1.4 million outlay in infrastructure improvement funds from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). City Manager Terrence Moore said the money will be used for hangar repairs, new lighting and paving work on the taxiway and runways.

"The opportunities are tremendous," he said.

"Opportunity," he said, has been the watchword for the airport in recent months.

With WVU set to play sports in the Big 12 athletic conference this fall, he said, the geographic notion of a "road game" on the schedule has suddenly sprouted wings. Iowa State, the nearest conference school WVU will face on the football field and basketball court, is 800 miles away.

That means, Moore said, that aviation begets athletics -- and the other way around.

"We still have ongoing plans for a runway extension," he said. That's so a once-regional airport can accommodate necessary air traffic from the Big 12 and its schools, which are mainly located in the Southwest.

And on Thursday, Silver Airways touched down for its inaugural flight in Morgantown. The Florida-based carrier will offer nonstop flights to Washington, D.C., from the University City.

In the meantime, Moore said he'll be quite happy to put the FAA funds to use. One of the first projects to take off will be hangar repairs, he said.

Local pilots earlier this year landed at Morgantown City Council to complain about leaky roofs in the hangars they rent at the airport.

James Snyder, who parks his 1946 airplane there, told council members then that it all came down to safety.

He tops his plane's fabriccovered wings with plastic tarps, he said.

That's so he can protect them from the rain that drips in through the holes in the hangar roof.

"The two things that scare you with an aircraft are rot and corrosion," he said.

Copyright 2012 - The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.