Columbia Regional (KCOU)

Columbia Regional is a mid-Missouri contract tower serving the university town between St. Louis and Kansas City. Two crossing runways handle the field: a seventy-four-hundred-foot primary and a crosswind runway, both cut into rolling farmland.

Columbia is a general-aviation majority operation with a handful of daily regional jets to sequence in among the light traffic. You work Columbia Tower. North flow lands and departs the 2; south flow uses the 20, with the crosswind runway as overflow. The northeast sector is fix-dense, fed by the real RNAV arrivals off the St. Louis and Kansas City routes, so most of your inbound work comes from that corner.

This is the Steady tier: a light board with just enough airline traffic to keep the pattern honest. A gentle on-ramp with a taste of scheduled service.

Runway layout