Fencing, lights, cameras, repairs due at airport

Mustang Beach Airport handles plenty of runway traffic and is soon to recieve a new automatic weather service for pilots. Improvement plans for Mustang Beach Airport are flying along.

The City of Port Aransas in October won a grant of about half a million dollars to pay for engineering and environmental assessment work that that will be the first part of a four-year plan for a few million dollars worth of improvements at the airport.

The planning work is expected in 2012, and then features including security fencing, lights, security cameras and runway repairs are likely to be added in 2013.

One of the first improvements will be replacement of the aiport’s AWOS, an automatic weather service for pilots that will give local weather with a phone call.

The city and the aviation division of the Texas Department of Transportation have partnered to provide an additional $300,000 in paving and drainage improvements to increase transient aircraft parking over the last few years.

Additions that are in the planning stage include new hangars and taxiway improvements.

(For more information about the airport, call Randy Hansen, the airport manager, at

749-4008.)