[airplane humming] Small airports in small towns are extremely important.

[airplane humming] The medevac flights take sick or injured people out.

It drives the economy.

Businesses choose this town instead of this town because there's an airport there.

Our economy is based off of agriculture out here, so we got a lot of ag aircraft thatd spray fertilizer and pesticides.

And we also have the transient aircraft, the people that need a fuel stop.

I've made dinner reservations for people.

We have a car that we can bring out to the airplane so you can run to town and have dinner.

And theyre friends too.

They just become friends over time.

When you operate a small airport, you do everything from top to bottom.

You scrub the floors, and you sign million-dollar contracts with the FAA.

We are the Kit Carson County Airport, but we're owned and operated by the City of Burlington.

So I'm a city employee.

We're the only fully operational public airport in this county, and it's a big county, too.

At a bigger airport, you have the entity that operates the airport it might be a county, it might be a city and then they allow a fixed based operator to come in and have the lobby, the fueling facilities and all those kinds of things.

This is the old airport lobby.

The airport was originally constructed in 1934, and we believe the terminal was built in 1936.

And back here used to be the old flight service station.

It looks pretty complex.

Nowadays, this same piece of equipment would be replaced by less than a desktop PC.

[wind] At our hangars, we've got 22 private pilots, many of whom who have never flown professionally, never flown commercially.

They're just hobbyists.

And most of airports like ours are built to support hobbyists.

They don't live here full time, but they have ranches here in the hills, and they fly in for the summers out of Texas to escape the heat.

And they just love doing it with their personal planes.

[wind] [bird chirping] Were replacing all of the taxiways, all the main taxiways to the runway.

We also got some new lighting.

Basically strobe lights at the end of the runway.

Finally got the money to replace those.

And then our new generator that was just installed about a week ago.

Charlie, come here.

Come here!

You're blocking the shot, dude.

Fuel and hangar rent is how we make money as an airport, and we're just not that busy like big airports.

We don't sell a ton of fuel.

We only have a certain amount of hangars that we can lease out.

So it is really difficult for small airports to stay afloat.

And that's where we would not exist if it wasn't for the the FAA's grant system.

So it's basically a live weather map of what's going on in the United States.

So anything green is nice weather, like it is here.

The ones that are blue, it's cloudy.

We're in a system of airports that are basically controlled by the FAA.

The Federal Aviation Administration.

We receive their grant funding, and in return, we need to operate the airport the way that they want it to be operated.

So that can be the grass not being more than 12 in.

long at any time.

In the wintertime, it's keeping the snow removed.

Anything more than two in.

of snow is required to be removed.

You cant be a clock-watcher if you're an airport operator.

It's really a 24-hour job.

[plane humming] Maybe.

But I've operated this airport for a little over 12 years now, and I've never felt like I've been at work a day in my life.

[radio] Roger that.

[radio] Be there in a couple.

When you're an aviation person, being around an airport is kind of like being home.

And it's like taking care of your home.

He's just going to come by and just zoom by and turn to the east when he comes by.

Every night when I leave, I check the lights to make sure that they come on and there's nothing broken.

And I check everything in the morning, and that first smell of jet fuel is just Oh, it smells so good.

[plane humming] It's a love is what it is.

[music fading] [plane humming]