Valkaria Airport — Grant-Valkaria, Florida

Brevard County owns and operates Valkaria Airport, a public-use general aviation field inside the Town of Grant-Valkaria, and runs it under Chapter 18 of the Brevard County Code.

The county describes Valkaria Airport as a county-owned and operated facility serving recreational and general aviation in the southeastern part of the county (Brevard County). The airport office is at #1 Pilots' Place, Valkaria, FL 32950, phone (321) 952-4590. The FAA record lists the owner as Brevard County at 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Building C, Suite 301, in Viera (FAA NFDC airport data).

Article II of Chapter 18 of the county code is titled Valkaria Airport, and its current sections came from Ord. No. 2008-50, adopted November 17, 2008 (Brevard County Code, Chapter 18). Section 18-38 states that the airport is owned and operated by the county and that no person has a vested right to use Valkaria Airport except as the county grants. Section 18-37 has the county manager appoint the airport manager when that manager is a county employee. The code defines the word town as the incorporated Town of Grant-Valkaria, the town in which the airport sits.

The town itself does not run the airport. The Town of Grant-Valkaria page places Valkaria Airport on Valkaria Road about 1.7 miles west of U.S. 1 and nine miles south of Melbourne, and links readers to the Brevard County website (Town of Grant-Valkaria). Town Hall sits on the same road at 1449 Valkaria Road.

Valkaria Airport has two intersecting asphalt runways, 10/28 and 14/32, and both are 4,000 feet long; 14/32 is the wider and better-lit of the two.

The FAA lists runway 10/28 at 4,000 by 60 feet in fair condition and runway 14/32 at 4,000 by 75 feet in good condition, both asphalt (FAA NFDC). The FAA also notes that the runway 28 markings are stained or discolored. Runway 14/32 carries medium intensity edge lights and a left-hand traffic pattern at both ends, and the night lighting remark says the lights for 14/32 are pilot-activated on the common traffic advisory frequency from sunset to sunrise. The FAA lists the airport elevation as 25.8 feet.

Brevard County's page gives the same layout in simpler terms: two intersecting 4,000-foot runways and 95 full-size hangars (Brevard County). Valkaria has no air traffic control tower, charges no landing fee and sells 100LL aviation fuel, according to the FAA record. The airport is attended Monday through Friday from 0800 to 1700, and it has a lighted segmented circle and an airport beacon that operates from sunset to sunrise.

Pilots at Valkaria Airport self-announce on CTAF and UNICOM 122.725 MHz, get field weather from the AWOS on 119.525 MHz and reach Orlando Approach on 126.025 MHz.

The FAA record lists the Valkaria weather station as an AWOS-3PT on 119.525 MHz, 0.2 nautical miles from the airport reference point (FAA NFDC). Brevard County calls the same equipment a Super AWOS that gives current weather at the field, available by radio on 119.525 MHz or as a data stream online (Brevard County). There is no ATIS. Flight service is the Saint Petersburg FSS at 1-800-WX-BRIEF.

Two GPS instrument approaches serve Valkaria, published as RNAV (GPS)-A and RNAV (GPS)-B, and pilots get or cancel IFR clearances through Orlando Approach by phone. The FAA remarks for X59 also warn of extensive powered paraglider operations, restrict touch-and-go practice when three or more aircraft are in the traffic pattern, and direct transient aircraft to park on the apron between the airport beacon and the terminal.

Valkaria Airport has 95 full-size hangars, and Brevard County keeps four separate waiting lists for half, large, rotorcraft and standard hangars.

The county airport page posts the four hangar waiting lists as PDF files: half hangar, large hangar, rotorcraft hangar and standard hangar (Brevard County, Valkaria Airport). Anyone doing business at the field needs written county permission. Chapter 18 of the county code defines a permit as including leases, space use permits, concession agreements and landing fee agreements authorized by the Board of County Commissioners for commercial activity at Valkaria Airport (Brevard County Code, section 18-36).

The same chapter gives the county the right to deny use of Valkaria Airport to anyone who fails to follow its rules, and it tells the county board to set procedures for appeal and reinstatement. Federal law sits on top: section 18-39 adopts federal air traffic rules as a controlling part of the Valkaria article, while the county keeps the right to set more restrictive criteria. The county's public airport page does not post hangar rates or lease terms; the airport office phone is (321) 952-4590.

Valkaria Airport began as Outlying Field Valkaria, a World War II Navy auxiliary field for Naval Air Station Melbourne, and Brevard County took it over as a public airport in 1959.

The Town of Grant-Valkaria history of the field says the U.S. Navy built OLF Valkaria during World War II as an auxiliary to Naval Air Station Melbourne, which is now Melbourne International Airport (Town of Grant-Valkaria). The field closed in late 1945 and did not reopen for flight operations until 1959. Through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the U.S. Air Force and NASA used part of the Valkaria site as a Missile Trajectory Measurement (MISTRAM) station supporting launches at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center.

In 1959 the Department of Defense and the General Services Administration conveyed the part of the Valkaria facility not used for MISTRAM to Brevard County for use as a public airport. That transfer still matters. Brevard County's airport page explains that surplus military airports deeded to local governments after the war carry federal grant assurances, and that for a war surplus airport such as Valkaria a documented violation can escalate to federal reclamation of the deeded property (Brevard County, airport FAQ).

Brevard County says neither the FAA nor FDOT requires a Valkaria Airport master plan, though Florida Statutes section 333.06(4) says one shall be prepared by each public-use airport licensed by FDOT under chapter 330, and only the county approves it.

According to the county's Valkaria Airport questions and answers, neither the FAA nor the Florida Department of Transportation ever requires an airport to do a master plan, but a current airport layout plan is required for most state and federally assisted development projects (Brevard County). The layout plan is the drawing set; the master plan adds the reasons, environmental impacts, cost, alternatives and public input behind it. FDOT and the FAA review, comment on and accept the plan after Brevard County, as airport sponsor, approves it, and the plan does not bind the county to any development scenario.

The same page also answers whether the county can restrict flight training that bothers Grant-Valkaria neighbors: not really. Only the FAA has jurisdiction over airspace and aircraft in flight, and FAA grant assurances bar Valkaria from improperly restricting access by legitimate aeronautical users. Florida Statutes section 333.01 defines an airport master plan as a comprehensive plan of an airport that typically describes current and future plans for airport development designed to support existing and future aviation demand, and section 333.06(4) requires each public-use airport licensed by FDOT under chapter 330 to prepare one (Florida Statutes, chapter 333). Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the Brevard County website.

Land around Valkaria Airport falls under Florida Statutes chapter 333, which requires every political subdivision with an airport hazard area inside its limits to adopt airport protection zoning.

Chapter 333 has a specific rule for an airport owned by one political subdivision when another political subdivision has land underlying the airport's federal Part 77 surfaces; Valkaria is owned by Brevard County and sits in the Town of Grant-Valkaria. In that case section 333.03(1)(b) says the political subdivisions must either adopt shared airport protection zoning by interlocal agreement or create a joint airport protection zoning board, with two voting representatives appointed by each government, a chair elected by those members and the airport manager or an airport representative serving without a vote (Florida Statutes, section 333.03). At a minimum the zoning must require a permit to build or alter any obstruction, plus marking and lighting of obstructions.

Section 333.03(2) adds airport land use compatibility zoning, which at a minimum must address land near the runways. It must prohibit new landfills within 5,000 feet of any runway used only by nonturbine aircraft and within 10,000 feet of a runway used or planned to be used by turbine aircraft. Where the airport has not conducted a noise study, it must prohibit residential construction and educational facilities, with narrow exceptions, in an area reaching half the length of the longest runway on each side and off each end of the centerline; with 4,000-foot runways at Valkaria, half the length works out to 2,000 feet. Local governments must send their airport zoning rules to the FDOT aviation office within 30 days of adoption.