Florida, United States

This is a decent spot to fly into for Sun n' Fun. It's a bit far away from the Lakeland, but easy to get into and out of so much less hassle. They charged a $4/night parking fee (2008) and a $4.99 service charge for gassing up, on top of the fuel charge.

On Saturday, 12 January, 2008, a Cessna 172 crashed into Old Tampa Bay about 800 feet short of the runway at St Petersburg Clearwater:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20080123X00090&key=1

Kathrinstadt Airport is a private airport located approximately 25 miles southwest of St. Augustine, Florida. Because it is registered with the FAA as a “Private Airport,” access is restricted, and limited to aircraft who receive landing clearance from the airport manager. Kathrinstadt Airport, besides being modeled after a 1920's style aerodrome, is also noted as being the maintenance airfield of Aeromarine West Indies Airways Corporation, an up-and-coming scheduled passenger airline service and aviation center.

Operational specifics are as follows:

Coordinates: Latitude 29° 38' 7" and Longitude 81° 27' 55"

Airport Identifier: 2FA7

Landing Surface: grass (turf)

Runway Length: 700 ft.

Runway Width: 110 ft.

Orientation of Runway: 09-27 (east-west)

Obstructions: trees at both approach ends of runways

Airport Indicators: lighted windsock, lighted segmented circle

Traffic Pattern: right traffic Runway 9 and left traffic Runway 27

Unicom frequency: 122.9

Operations: VFR only

Based Aircraft: 2 aircraft currently based at this airport (1 multi-engine and 1 single-engine)

Facilities: there is one maintenance hangar located at the center/north side of the runways.

Airport Hours: airport is attended 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

Security: 24 hour armed security, electric/barbed wire fencing, motion sensing cameras.

Contact information: the airport manager can be contacted via email at Aeromarine.Airways@yahoo.com or by phone at the Aeromarine Office @ 386-325-3534.

Services: general mainenance facilities for Aeromarine West Indies Airways Corp only.

Information about Aeromarine West Indies Airways can be found at: http://aeromarine-airways.com/

Operational warnings: besides being restricted to those aircraft who secure clearance from the airport manager, extreme care must be exercised with regards to operations. Kathrinstadt Airport is to be considered for use by STOL aircraft, aircraft with STOL characteristics, and ultralights only! Also, ONLY experienced airmen are to be granted operational clearance to use Kathrinstadt Airport, and this at the airport manager’s discretion.

The airport manager can be contacted via e-mail at the following:

Kathrinstadt_Airport@yahoo.com

The airport address:

Kathrinstadt Airport

10460 Turpin Ave.

Hastings, Florida. 32145

The airport manager can be reached via Unicom, or by phone at the Aeromarine office:

Unicom frequency: 122.9

Flight office: 386-325-3534

Zoom airlines is adding a non-stop flight from FLL to London (presumably Gatwick LGW) -- it will be the first scheduled trans-Atlantic flight route from the airport in over a decade:

http://www.nbc6.net/travelgetaways/15015103/detail.html

Piper moved here after floods destroyed the original Piper plant in Lock Haven, PA in 1972. There have been some rumours that the company might move to Albuquerque or Oklahoma City:

http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2008/080108piper.html