Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip
| Cape Canaveral AFS Skid Strip | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IATA: none – ICAO: KXMR – FAA LID: XMR | |||||||||||
| Summary | |||||||||||
| Airport type | Military | ||||||||||
| Operator | United States Air Force | ||||||||||
| Serves | Cape Canaveral Air Force Station | ||||||||||
| Location | Cape Canaveral | ||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 10 ft / 3 m | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. | ||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||
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Cape Canaveral AFS Skid Strip (ICAO: KXMR) is a military airport at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Cocoa Beach, Florida. It has an asphalt-paved runway designated 13/31 and measuring 10,000 by 200 ft (3,048 by 61 m). The facility is owned by the United States Air Force (USAF).[1]
Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, Cape Canaveral AFS Skid Strip is assigned XMR by the FAA, but has no designation from the IATA.[2]
The runway was first called the Skid Strip because SM-62 Snark cruise missiles (which lacked wheels) returning from test flights were supposed to skid to a halt on it.[3]
In the 1960s the Douglas C-133 Cargomaster was a frequent visitor, carrying modified Atlas and Titan missiles, used as launch vehicles for manned and unmanned space programs leading to the Apollo Moon landings. The Skid Strip was used by NASA's Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy transport aircraft carrying the S-IVB upper stage for the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets used in Project Apollo.
Today, it is predominantly used by USAF C-130 Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III and C-5 Galaxy aircraft transporting satellite payloads to CCAFS for mating with launch vehicles.
The CCAFS Skid Strip is sometimes confused with the NASA Shuttle Landing Facility, but that runway, specially constructed for the Space Shuttle, is located on Merritt Island at the adjacent John F. Kennedy Space Center.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 FAA Airport Master Record for XMR (Form 5010 PDF), effective 2007-10-25
- ↑ Great Circle Mapper: KXMR — Cocoa Beach, Florida (Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip)
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- FAA Airport Diagram (PDF), effective June 13, 2024
- Resources for this U.S. military airport:
- FAA airport information for XMR
- AirNav airport information for KXMR
- NOAA/NWS latest weather observations
- SkyVector aeronautical chart for KXMR
- Airport information for XMR at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.
See also
- Shuttle Landing Facility (KSC)
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