Lawrence Regional Airport to paint sunflower compass rose for pilots

A sunflower is about to become a working tool on Lawrence Regional Airport’s tarmac, where pilots will use the new compass rose to calibrate their instruments as the design also gives the field a distinctly local look.

Volunteers were laying out the geometry for the marking on May 1, with plans to paint it the next day in bright blue and gold. The sunflower-shaped compass rose is more than decoration. The Federal Aviation Administration says a properly surveyed compass calibration pad, also called a compass rose, can be used to align an aircraft compass with Earth’s magnetic field, and its guidance says owners and operators should swing aircraft at periodic intervals and after major changes or servicing.

At Lawrence, that practical purpose is paired with a design that reads unmistakably Kansas. Carol Foy created the sunflower motif after Clancey Maloney, chair of the Lawrence Aviation Advisory Board and a friend through their shared connection to The Ninety-Nines, reached out about the project. Foy has been a member of The Ninety-Nines since 1991 and previously worked as a landscape architect, a background that fits a project where geometry, visibility and function all matter at once.

The new marking also restores a familiar airport feature that had shrunk over time. Before recent repaving and renovation work, Lawrence Regional Airport had a compass rose that was about half the size of the one now being painted. That means the project is not simply adding a new flourish; it is bringing back an operational reference point pilots will actually use while making it more prominent on the airfield.

That visibility matters at a place the City of Lawrence has owned and operated since its dedication at the site in October 1929. The city says Lawrence Regional Airport is one of the oldest continuously operating airports at its original location in Kansas. It now averages more than 105 daily flight operations, with single-engine aircraft, twin-engine aircraft, business jets and helicopters moving through a facility that sits on 486 acres and has two runways.

The project also fits a long volunteer tradition in aviation. The Ninety-Nines describe airmarking as a practice in which members paint airport names, compass rose symbols and other identifiers, and Lawrence’s sunflower rose falls squarely within that heritage. For a community that sees the airport as one of its public gateways, the finished marking will do two things at once: help pilots do their jobs and give residents a recognizable piece of Lawrence they can point to with pride.