BY GARY WAYNE COX

Aircraft: Big Sandy Unicom…Gulfstream…5…2…2…Bravo…Papa…short final…2..1…

Unicom: Bravo…Papa…winds 230 at 8 knots…no other reported traffic…

The question I’m most often asked at the airport is, “What is the biggest plane that can land here?” I don’t know the answer to that because I don’t know the capabilities of all the different aircraft. The Boeing 737 could land on 5,000 feet of runway, but taking back off might be a problem.

That happened a few years back at Capital City Airport in Frankfort. A Boeing 737 commercial jet was talking to Lexington Bluegrass Airport tower and had been cleared to land on runway 4. The plane had just departed Louisville Standiford Field, so it would not be getting much altitude for the short flight to Lexington. When Bluegrass Field cleared the 737 to land on runway 4, the pilot looked down and saw the Capital City Airport, since Frankfort and Lexington airports have the same runway alignments, 4 and 22, he mistakenly thought he was at Lexington — and landed in Frankfort.