By Jill Nagy
There is a $1 million building project planned for the Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport in Queensbury, which is the Warren County airport. Eight new hangars will be constructed.
The project will also result in a new building to house snow removal equipment and one replacing an original structure built in the 1940s.
Work is expected to begin in the spring.
Officials are also applying for a grant to upgrade the runway lights to LED lights.
Plank Construction of Schenectady is the general contractor. That project is budgeted at $993,000, of which the state Department of Transportation will pay 90 percent and Warren County will pay the balance.
Foundation and electrical work are complete, according to airport manager Don McGraw. “Now, we are waiting for the steel” to complete the job.
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to foot the $2.3 million bill for the snow removal equipment building. Construction should begin this spring with the same general contractor, McGraw said.
McGraw is waiting to learn whether the grant money for the runway lighting project will be forthcoming.
The airport is perhaps best known as the launching site for the annual Adirondack Balloon Festival, a huge tourist draw for the region each fall. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival was canceled in 2020, but McGraw hopes to get the hot air balloons back up in the air this year.
Event organizers are optimistic and have set the dates for the 2021 Adirondack Balloon Festival as Sept. 23-26.
Floyd Bennett Memorial Airport was built in 1940 at the request of the U.S. Army. It opened in March 1941 with one turf runway. It was considered a strategic location because it is on the route between New York City and Montreal.
Today, there are two paved runways and auxiliary buildings. The primary runway runs southwest to northeast. A shorter runway, crosses it at right angles and is reserved for use when there are strong cross-winds.
The airport is named for Floyd Bennet, a Warrensburg native and decorated World War I naval pilot. He is probably best known for piloting Commander Byrd’s flight that may have reached the North Pole. He and Byrd also did an aerial survey of Greenland. Bennett received the Medal of Honor and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
In its heyday, the airport hosted commercial airline flights. With completion of the Northway, it became more convenient to drive than to fly and the airlines left.
Today, it is home to general aviation and corporate flights, mainly small single-engine planes, according to McGraw. But the airport is busy. All 18 hangars the county leases are spoken for.
Business was down about 20 percent in 2020 but is recovering “as we slowly work our way through COVID recovery,” McGraw said.
There are eight employees at the airport. Three are Warren County employees and the rest work for RichAir, the fixed-base operator of the airport.
