Business View Magazine | April 2019

71 and I might be one of the few surviving folks that can claim to have taken off and landed on both of them.” On April 1, 1946, Chicago and Southern Air- lines landed in Paducah from Memphis on its way to Detroit, Michigan. C&S, which was later bought by Delta Airlines, connected Paducah with Houston, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, and Memphis. On August 14, 1949, the Airport was renamed Barkley Field in honor of the now former Vice President. With Barkley Field, Paducah marked its place on the map, as one of the first cities its size to have an airport, and one of only 400 airports in the country to have commercial air service. “The Airport has seen considerable expansion over the years,” Roof continues. “Our longest runway is now over 6,500 feet long; our cross- wind is 5,500 feet long; there are instrument approaches on all four runway ends. In 1974, the FAA opened a control tower, here, which is in the process of being renovated. Hopefully, it will be completed within the next four to five months as the controllers are working out of a temporary tower at this point.” Like many U.S. regional airports, Barkley also saw considerable turnover of its commercial airlines over the years - Ozark Airlines, North- west Airlink, Mesaba Airlines, and C&S’ suc- cessor, Delta – due to a combination of cor- porate mergers and takeovers, and, perhaps more importantly, the Airline Deregulation Act BARKLEY REGIONAL AIRPORT Simmons Engineering, Inc. Simmons Engineering, Inc. has a staff of highly trained and experi- enced professional engineers, designers, surveyors, draftsmen and technicians with a full range of services professionally implement- ed by seasoned management personnel. Our services are comprised of all facets of civil engineering, in- cluding feasibility studies, master plan developments, surveying, environmental studies, design, construction management, and field inspection. Complementing the staff is complete materials testing laboratory, geotechnical explorations equipment and computer as- sisted design and drafting systems. Simmons Engineering, Inc. has drawn on the broad background of its engineers to prepare master plans for airports including Part 139 Regional Airports. These projects are individualized to meet the needs and requirements of each client. Planning services in- clude facility inventories, site evaluations, layout plans, demand capacity analysis, passenger and aircraft use forecasts, access road and parking plans, pavement evaluations, construction cost esti- mates and airport financial planning. 2945 Fisher Road, P.O. Box 69 Barkley Regional Airport West Paducah, KY 42086 WWW.SIMMONSENGINEERING.NET