Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport , also known as Shepherd Field, is a civilian-owned, public use

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

located four

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...

s (5 mi, 7 km) south of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

of Martinsburg, a city in Berkeley County,

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is owned by the Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport Authority or EWVRAA. This airport is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, in which the Federal Aviation Administration categorized it as a ''

reliever airport A relief airport or reliever airport is an airport that is built or designated to provide relief or additional capacity to an area when the primary commercial airport(s) requires additional capacity, on a long-term or temporary basis. Reliever a ...

''. The airport is mostly used for

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

. The airport authority’s

fixed base operator A fixed-base operator (FBO) is an organization granted the right by an airport to operate at the airport and provide aeronautical services such as fueling, hangaring, tie-down and parking, aircraft rental, aircraft maintenance, flight instruction ...

, MRB Aviation offers many services including

Air Charter Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a airline ticket, ticket through a traditional airline). Regulation Charter – also called air taxi or ad h ...

, Aircraft Management,

Flight Training Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills. Flight training can be conducted under a str ...

(with partner Bravo Flight Training),

Aircraft Maintenance Aircraft maintenance is the performance of tasks required to ensure the continuing airworthiness of an aircraft or aircraft part, including overhaul, inspection, replacement, defect rectification, and the embodiment of modifications, compliance ...

, Fuel Sales and

Hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

Rentals. The EWVRAA has entered into a joint-use agreement with the

West Virginia Air National Guard The West Virginia Air National Guard (WV ANG) is the aerial militia of the State of West Virginia, United States of America. It is, along with the West Virginia Army National Guard, an element of the West Virginia National Guard, and is also close ...

's 167th Airlift Wing (167 AW), having a presence since 1955 at the adjacent Shepherd Field Air National Guard Base. The 167 AW is an Air Mobility Command (AMC)-gained unit which began operating the

Boeing C-17 Globemaster III The McDonnell Douglas/Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft that was developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) from the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas. The C-17 carries forward the name of two ...

aircraft in January 2015. Prior to receiving the C-17, the airport had hosted a fleet of larger Lockheed C-5A Galaxy transport aircraft since 2007. Beginning in July 2006 and running through the fall of 2012, the airport underwent a major improvement program which included the removal of the secondary runway 17/35, an expansion to the primary runway 08/26, and the construction of larger parking areas needed to accommodate the C-5A Galaxy aircraft. This project also included the addition of a new

Air Traffic Control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

tower,

Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting Aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) is a type of firefighting that involves the emergency response, mitigation, evacuation, and rescue of passengers and crew of aircraft involved in aviation accidents and incidents. Airports with schedule ...

station, and hangars for the C-5As, as the existing hangars designed to house the

Lockheed C-130H Hercules The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally design ...

were grossly inadequate considering the size of the larger plane. Also in this time period was the construction of a new entrance to the base, three 80,000-square-foot hangars with a maintenance mall, base supply, operations facility, simulator facility, fuel facility and tank farm. In previous decades, the WVANG also flew many other aircraft types including the

F-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team headed by James ...

and

F-86 Sabre The North American F-86 Sabre, sometimes called the Sabrejet, is a transonic jet fighter aircraft. Produced by North American Aviation, the Sabre is best known as the United States' first swept-wing fighter that could counter the swept-wing Sov ...

fighters. The 167th Airlift Wing held an open house in conjunction with the Thunder Over the Blue Ridge Air Show on September 4 and 5, 2010. The

United States Air Force Thunderbirds The USAF Air Demonstration Squadron ("Thunderbirds") is the air demonstration squadron of the United States Air Force The Thunderbirds are assigned to the 57th Wing, and are based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Created in 1953, the USAF T ...

and the

United States Army Parachute Team The United States Army Parachute Team, nicknamed the Golden Knights, is a demonstration and competition parachute team of the United States Army. It consists of demonstration and competition parachutist teams, drawn from all branches of the U.S. ...

attended the show which drew a crowd of more than 80,000 people.

History

Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport has had airline service through the years into the early 1970s, including Allegheny, Lake Central, and Cumberland Airlines. The last Lake Central timetable before merging with Allegheny in 1968 showed three flights a day, with one to Elkins, WV, and two to Baltimore, using Nord 262 prop jets. After the merger Allegheny continued to serve the airport for several years. Allegheny eventually upgraded the aircraft to Convair 580 prop jets and the nonstop service changed to Washington (DCA) and Clarksburg, WV, with three or four departures a day.Lake Central timetable April 28, 1968. Allegheny timetable April 26, 1970 By 1973 all commercial airline service had ended and was directed through the nearby airport at Hagerstown, Maryland.

Facilities and aircraft

The airport covers an area of 998

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s (411 ha) at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of 565 feet (172 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

designated 08/26 with a primarily

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

surface with portions composed of

portland cement Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the early 19th c ...

concrete (PCC) measuring 8,815 by 150 feet (2,687 x 46 m). This runway also features paved asphalt shoulders of 25 feet on either side laterally and two additional 400-foot paved blast pads on either runway end, making the total paved surface dimensions approximately 9,615 feet in length and 200 feet in width (2,931 x 61 m), by far the largest runway in the state of West Virginia. For the 12-month period ending May 31, 2018, the airport had 29,303 aircraft operations, an average of 80 per day: 79%

, 20%

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

, and 1%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) ...

. At that time there were 93 aircraft based at this airport: 78% single-

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

, 10% multi-engine, 2% helicopter, 1% civilian jet and 9%

References

External links

Martinsburg/Eastern WV Regional Airport
at

West Virginia DOT The West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT) is the state agency responsible for transportation in West Virginia. The Department of Transportation serves an umbrella organization for seven subsidiary agencies which are directly respons ...

Airport Directory
WV Air National Guard

Aerial image as of March 1991
from

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The National Map ''The National Map'' is a collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the effort is to prov ...

'' * * {{US-airport-ga, MRB
Airport Improvement Magazine: "Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport Reconstructs Runway to Handle C-5 Traffic"
Airports in West Virginia Buildings and structures in Berkeley County, West Virginia Martinsburg, West Virginia Transportation in Berkeley County, West Virginia