Business View Magazine - Dec 2023

regional airline in America, serves Liberal Mid- America Regional. It offers flights to Denver and Dodge City, Kansas. SkyWest is contracted by American, Delta, United and Alaska airlines. Considering its size, the airport sees a lot of traffic, as Fornwalt points out. Last year, the airport saw some 42,000 aircraft operations. “That’s an average of 117 a day,” he adds. “We stay pretty busy.” Speaking of staying busy, the on-site Mid-America Air Museum is a popular tourist destination. It is the biggest aircraft museum in all of Kansas. It has on display more than 100 aircraft, both within the museum’s primary building and on the adjacent tarmac, a gift store and several displays of photographs and memorabilia that relate to the history of aviation in the Sunflower State. The museum is situated within a hangar that once belonged to Beech Aircraft, where Beech produced Beech Musketeer, Beechcraft Baron and Beechcraft Duchess light airplanes.That was back in the 1960’s and ’70’s. It was thanks to donations by the late Col. Tom A. Thomas, Jr. that came from his own private collection that the museum got off the ground, so to speak. Thomas donated more than 50 different aircraft to the City of Liberal.This generous gift––in today’s dollars and when adjusted for inflation–– works out to a whopping total of more than $3 million. Today, the museum also features some 80,000 square feet of educational exhibits. The museum’s collection spans more than 90 years of aircraft design and development, and there’s something within its confines sure to interest all visitors. INFRASTRUCTURAL IMPROVEMENTS Fornwalt says theairport sawanapron rehabilitation in the spring. This is the area of an airport wherein aircraft are parked, unloaded or loaded, refueled, boarded or maintained. The airport is home to some 44 based aircraft. Right around the corner is a lighting project. This will entail having the main runway switched to LED 362 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 12