| M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport | |
| Iata: | PLK |
| Icao: | KPLK |
| Faa: | PLK |
| Type: | Public |
| Owner-Oper: | Taney County, Missouri |
| City-Served: | Branson / Hollister |
| Location: | Branson, Missouri |
| Elevation-F: | 940 |
| Website: | http://www.flyplk.com |
| Coordinates: | 36.6258°N -93.2289°W |
| Pushpin Map: | USA Missouri#USA |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of airport in Missouri |
| Pushpin Label: | PLK |
| Pushpin Label Position: | top |
| R1-Number: | 12/30 |
| R1-Length-F: | 3,738 |
| R1-Surface: | Asphalt |
| Stat-Year: | 2011 |
| Stat1-Header: | Aircraft operations |
| Stat1-Data: | 11,200 |
| Stat2-Header: | Based aircraft |
| Stat2-Data: | 68 |
| Footnotes: | Sources: Airport[1] and FAA[2] |
M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport is a county-owned, public-use airport in Taney County, Missouri, United States. It is located one nautical mile (2 km) south of the central business district of Branson, Missouri, one nautical mile (2 km) northeast of Point Lookout, Missouri, and a few yards west of the old downtown area of Hollister, Missouri. It was formerly known as M. Graham Clark Field – Taney County Airport.[3]
M. Graham Clark Field was originally developed as a private airport by the College of the Ozarks for use in their aviation science department, and was originally officially associated with the village of Point Lookout, Missouri, a small village on a bluff overlooking the White River Valley which was later completely bought out and overwhelmed by the development of the college. The airport identifier, PLK, was based on the name of the town officially associated with the facility under a federal grant through which the college originally developed the airport.
The airport was named after M. Graham Clark, the president of the college at the time the airport was originally constructed.
College of the Ozarks closed down its aviation science department in 2003. Shortly thereafter, the airport was donated by the college to Taney County so that the Branson and Hollister community would not lose its important general aviation airport.
A private entity had contracted with the college to provide commercial airline service to Clark Field, serving Branson, in the late 1990s, but the venture failed and the terminal building, fire department building, and associated ramp were turned over to the college. The airport currently does not have any scheduled commercial airline service. Since the opening of the newly developed Branson Airport and the construction of new terminal facilities at the Springfield-Branson National Airport there is no expectation of airline service at Clark Field.
The airport was named after a person, M. Graham Clark, and the donation agreement between the college and the county calls for the airport to always be named M. Graham Clark Field, though it is usually referred to as Clark Field, or simply as "Clark." The official Facilities Directory lists the airport under the name of the town it was originally officially associated with, Point Lookout, so some pilots will refer to the airport as "Point Lookout." The Kansas City Sectional Chart depicts the airport as "Clark–Taney County", but on two lines, so some pilots refer to it as "Clark County." Some local pilots refer to it as "Taney County." Some transient pilots associating the airport with the principal city of Branson refer to it as "Branson," despite the proximity of the newly developed Branson Airport about eight miles to the southeast. Most recently, there has been a proposal to officially rename the airport as "M. Graham Clark Branson Downtown Taney County Airport" as a marketing move to attract some of the low end corporate traffic from nearby Boone County Airport or the Branson Airport. Although the airport board has never adopted the proposal, many local pilots pushing for the change have been referring to the airport as "Branson Downtown" or simply "Downtown". The use of so many names for the same airport has also been known to cause radio confusion in dense traffic. It is not unusual for approaching traffic making an initial call to refer to the airport as "Clark Point Lookout Branson Downtown Taney County . . ." in an attempt to be specific, and use a shorter name on subsequent calls.
M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport covers an area of 40 acres (16 ha) at an elevation of 940 feet (287 m) above mean sea level. It has one runway designated 12/30 with an asphalt surface measuring 3,738 by 100 feet (1,139 x 30 m). A GPS Approach is published and the runway provides both Medium Intensity Runway Lights (MIRL) and Runway End Identifier Lights (REIL).
For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2011, the airport had 11,200 aircraft operations, an average of 30 per day: 96% general aviation, 4% air taxi, and <1% military. At that time there were 68 aircraft based at this airport: 78% single-engine, 13% multi-engine, 2% jet, and 7% helicopter.
The FBO is operated by the Taney County Airport Board. Repair services are available from Branson Aircraft Repair, LLC. Helicopter charter, touring, and flight training are offered, as well.
Clark Field has at times been one of the busiest general aviation airports in the region. It was at one time ranked the fourth busiest airport by number of aircraft operations in the state of Missouri behind Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Kansas City Downtown Airport, and Spirit of St. Louis Airport, outranking Kansas City International Airport and Springfield-Branson National Airport. The airport serves helicopter operations. Also, there is a substantial antique airplane collector on the field and the field is popular with other operators flying aircraft without radios. There is no control tower as it is an uncontrolled field. It is not uncommon for there to be several aircraft in the pattern at the same time.
The direction of the prevailing winds are typically from the north or from the southwest. The runway was constructed west-northwest and east-southeast due to the terrain, creating a prevailing crosswind. This "built-in crosswind" was considered a desired attribute when the airport was used to train pilots, allowing them to obtain extensive crosswind procedure training, although there were several relatively minor crosswind accidents.
Around March 10, 2011, the runway numbers at M. Graham Clark Field were changed from 11/29 to 12/30.
This airport was free of any fatal accident history for several decades, but there have been a few fatal accidents associated with the field in recent years, including:
Other incidents at the airport include: