Yeager Airport

From MetroAirWiki

Yeager Airport
IATA: CRW - ICAO: KCRW
Summary
Airport type		Public
Operator		Central West Virginia Airport Authority
Serves		Charleston, West Virginia
Elevation AMSL		981 ft (299 m)
Coordinates		38°22′23″N, 81°35′35″W
Website		http://www.yeagerairport.com
Parts of this article may come from Wikipedia
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	ft	m
5/23	6302	1921	Asphalt
15/33	4750	1448	Asphalt

Contents 1 General 2 Gate Assignment 3 Flight Planning Resources 4 IFR Routes 5 Available Sceneries

General

Yeager Airport is a public airport located three miles east of the central business district (CBD) of Charleston, a city in Kanawha County, West Virginia, USA. The airport covers 767 acres and has two runways. It is also home to the 9 C-130s from the 130th Airlift Wing.

First-time passengers who watch their planes approach the airport may feel uneasy; the airport sits on a hilltop over 300 feet above the valleys of the Elk and Kanawha Rivers, and the hill drops off sharply on all sides. Some pilots who regularly fly into the airport liken landing at Yeager to landing on an aircraft carrier, even keeping in mind the fact that aircraft carriers move with the seas while Yeager is stationary.

During World War II, Charleston's airport at that time, Wertz Field, closed when the airport's approaches were blocked once the federal government built a synthetic rubber plant next to the airport; this left the city without an airport. However, there were plans before the war to build a new Charleston airport, as Wertz Field was already becoming commercially obsolete.

The city started construction of its new airport in 1944; the facility opened in 1947 as Kanawha Airport. The airport received its current name in 1985, honoring then-Brigadier General Chuck Yeager, a native of nearby Lincoln County who piloted the world's first supersonic flight in the Bell X-1.

The airport's construction was one of the most remarkable engineering accomplishments of the 1940s. The original topography of the area where Yeager Airport now stands consisted of three large and four small hilltops on a ridge overlooking the Elk River. In order to create enough flat land for an airport, it was necessary to shear off the tops of all seven hills, and use the soil to fill in the valleys in between. At that time, the construction of Kanawha Airport was reportedly the second-largest earth-moving project in history, behind the construction of the Panama Canal.

Gate Assignment

MetroAir operates out of the Main Terminal at KCRW.

Flight Planning Resources

• Airport Diagram
• Terminal Procedures - contains SID, STAR and IAP

IFR Routes

Pilots should add their IFR route plans originating from KCRW here as a central repository for their fellow pilots.

Destination	Route	Suggested Altitude	Charts	Preferred	Comments
KDTW		17,000 Range: FL190-410 (odd)	KCRW KDTW		N/A

Available Sceneries

FS version	pay-/freeware	developer	available updates
FS9	freeware	AVSIM - Watsup Sceneries - KCRW full v1 - february 2007	AVSIM - Watsup Sceneries - Update Pack 'Era 2' - march 2007
FSX	freeware	AVSIM - Watsup Sceneries - KCRW X full v1 - january 2008	none