San Marcos Regional Airport is a 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 surfa ...

located in Caldwell County,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

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 territori ...

. It is four nautical miles (7 km) east of the central business district of

San Marcos San Marcos is the Spanish name of Saint Mark. It may also refer to: Towns and cities Argentina * San Marcos, Salta Colombia * San Marcos, Antioquia * San Marcos, Sucre Costa Rica * San Marcos, Costa Rica (aka San Marcos de Tarrazú) ...

, a city that is mostly in

Hays County Hays County is located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. Hays County is part of the Austin- Round Rock metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, its official population had reached 241,067. The county seat is San Marcos. H ...

. The airport is owned by the City of San Marcos and operated by Texas Aviation Partners. It is located east of the border of Caldwell County and Hays County. Before it was operated as a civilian airport it was known as

Gary Air Force Base Camp Gary (Edward Gary Air Force Base until 15 December 1956) was the United States military installation that was redeveloped into the San Marcos Municipal Airport and thGary Job Corps Center the largest in the nation. San Marcos Army Air F ...

. Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter

location identifier A location identifier is a symbolic representation for the name and the location of an airport, navigation aid, or weather station, and is used for staffed air traffic control facilities in air traffic control, telecommunications, computer programm ...

for the

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

and IATA, this airport is assigned HYI by the FAA but has no designation from the IATA.

History

Military

It was the site of the Gary Army Airfield

Civilian

Organized San Marcans fought to save the base, and on November 20, 1964, President

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

announced in a speech at his alma mater,

Southwest Texas State College Texas State University is a public research university in San Marcos, Texas. Since its establishment in 1899, the university has grown to the second largest university in the Greater Austin metropolitan area and the fifth largest university ...

that the abandoned Camp Gary would be the site of a new federal vocational training facility called Job Corps. Today it's known as th
Gary Job Corps Center
the largest in the nation. In 2014, the airport was selected to be the location for the

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) is a Frederick, Maryland-based American non-profit political organization that advocates for general aviation. AOPA's membership consists mainly of general aviation pilots in the United States ...

's regional fly-in.

Facilities and aircraft

San Marcos Regional Airport covers an area of 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 § Ver ...

of 597 feet (182 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value (magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ari ...

. It has three

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 ...

paved

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, concre ...

s: 8/26 is 6,330 by 100 feet (1,929 x 30 m), 13/31 is 5,603 by 150 feet (1,708 x 46 m) and 17/35 is 5,213 by 100 feet (1,589 x 30 m). For the 12-month period ending September 30, 2015, the airport had 46,422 aircraft operations, an average of 127 per day: 98%

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 ...

, 2%

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 108 aircraft based at this airport: 76% 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 ...

, 20% multi-engine and 4% jet.

Accidents and incidents

*Two airplanes collided on September 24, 2020 while attempting to land at San Marcos Regional Airport. Two men in one of the planes were injured while the pilot and sole occupant of the second one was uninjured. One of the planes burned and the second one overturned after crashing.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control Airports in Texas San Marcos, Texas Buildings and structures in Caldwell County, Texas Transportation in Caldwell County, Texas Transportation in Hays County, Texas Airports in Greater Austin