Operations Threshold to Establish a Tower

luvflyin said:
Sheridan Wyoming about 5 or so years ago. It was a Non Federal Tower. There were a lot that closed in 1981.
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Doesn't change the principle of your example, but I think you mean Gillette, WY, Sheridan has not had a tower that I know of, at least since 1994.
 
Jim Carpenter said:
Doesn't change the principle of your example, but I think you mean Gillette, WY, Sheridan has not had a tower that I know of, at least since 1994.
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Slapin’ self upside the head. I remembered it was up there in that corner of Wyoming but guessed wrong. Post edited. Thx for the point out.
 
Not trying to thread-jack here, but I'm curious. Anyone know why KFDK and KESN have towers when both lack scheduled airline service? My best guesses would be multiple runways (unlikely, there are plenty of non-towered fields with crossing runways) or the presence of a State Police helicopter base. Thoughts?
 
BaltCoFlyer said:
Not trying to thread-jack here, but I'm curious. Anyone know why KFDK and KESN have towers when both lack scheduled airline service? My best guesses would be multiple runways (unlikely, there are plenty of non-towered fields with crossing runways) or the presence of a State Police helicopter base. Thoughts?
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All I know is that there are plenty of towered airports that don't have airline service.
 
Country Flier said:
KAID, Anderson Indiana is another...privately funded (I've heard). I was at the field one time early, before the tower opened, and I watched a car pull up to the control tower...a guy and his dog got out and went inside. My friend local to the field said the controller took his dog to work with him every day...maybe he takes a hand-held with him to let the dog out....a quick check of Anderson IN shows 53 operations...PER DAY!
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Anderson is a weird case, as is KMIE Muncie just down the road, for the same reasons.
Many moons ago, the two major companies based in town required an active tower for their corporate operations. KAID had scheduled corporate shuttles, and even a scheduled 135 passenger operation to Detroit there at one time. Both companies are long gone now, operations shipped off to Mexico and China.

Feds paid for the tower and maintenance, city pays for the contract controller.
(Used to an independent guy, don’t know about now.)
 
BaltCoFlyer said:
Not trying to thread-jack here, but I'm curious. Anyone know why KFDK and KESN have towers when both lack scheduled airline service? My best guesses would be multiple runways (unlikely, there are plenty of non-towered fields with crossing runways) or the presence of a State Police helicopter base. Thoughts?
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Because the FAA decided to really mess up the field required a tower? FDK never had (at least not in the 50 years I've been flying there) air service. It had a moderate amount of traffic (much as JYO), but never in my estimation a problem that demanded ATC involvement.
 
Scheduled air service neither requires a towered airport, nor does a towered airport require scheduled air service. Whether or not an airport has a tower is based on number of operations (either present or historical), desire of the airport and or community to have a tower, and the FAA's ability to fund and operate it. There are busy non-towered airports that don't have a tower because of funding or lack of desire, and their are low traffic airports that have a tower just because they always had a tower and no one wants to give it up.

Politics sometimes get into play as well. Is it a Senator's hometown?
 
Clip4 said:
The article discusses radar approach control, which isn’t a simple control tower. The radar there is needed to aid ATC. The final product is likely to be a TRSA.

Totally different than a tower in the flat lands.
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I don't think a TRSA is gonna show up anywhere anymore.

flyingron said:
I wonder the same thing. They lost what little air service they had there more than two decades ago (I kind of liked the Hickory Hop down to CLT. I'd use it today if it was still around). There's tons of these underutilized towers in WV (thank you, Senator Byrd) as well. The only ones I can think of as decommissioned were military towers where the FAA didn't pick it up after the military moved out.
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I can think of one of those towers that really needs to get recommissioned - KMCC

bbchien said:
They do not hand off to Lewis tower. Their equippage is a phone and a set of binoculars.
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How does that work at an airport with 6 charted instrument approaches?

BaltCoFlyer said:
Not trying to thread-jack here, but I'm curious. Anyone know why KFDK and KESN have towers when both lack scheduled airline service? My best guesses would be multiple runways (unlikely, there are plenty of non-towered fields with crossing runways) or the presence of a State Police helicopter base. Thoughts?
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Out of 28 non military airports with towers in Southern California (didn't count BFL or SBA in these) I just counted (might be more, this was just rough off the chart), approximately 17 don't have regular airline or heavy cargo service. The highest level tower in the San Diego area gets no airline or major cargo surface and has a 3400' LDA on all of its runways.
 
N1120A said:
I don't think a TRSA is gonna show up anywhere anymore.



I can think of one of those towers that really needs to get recommissioned - KMCC



How does that work at an airport with 6 charted instrument approaches?



Out of 28 non military airports with towers in Southern California (didn't count BFL or SBA in these) I just counted (might be more, this was just rough off the chart), approximately 17 don't have regular airline or heavy cargo service. The highest level tower in the San Diego area gets no airline or major cargo surface and has a 3400' LDA on all of its runways.
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TRSAs aren’t going to show up any where anymore?​

​

List of Terminal Radar Service Areas (TRSAs) in the United StatesEdit​

The
AirportApproach ControlCityState
Maxwell Air Force BaseMontgomery ApproachMontgomeryAlabama
Fort Smith Regional AirportRazorback ApproachFort SmithArkansas
Fairbanks International AirportFairbanks ApproachFairbanksAlaska
Palm Springs International AirportSoCal ApproachPalm SpringsCalifornia
Augusta Regional AirportAugusta ApproachAugustaGeorgia
Middle Georgia Regional AirportAtlanta ApproachMaconGeorgia
Robins Air Force BaseAtlanta ApproachWarner RobinsGeorgia
Chicago Rockford International AirportRockford ApproachRockfordIllinois
Lake Charles Regional AirportLake Charles ApproachLake CharlesLouisiana
Monroe Regional AirportMonroe ApproachMonroeLouisiana
Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International AirportGreat Lakes ApproachKalamazooMichigan
Muskegon County AirportGreat Lakes ApproachMuskegonMichigan
MBS International AirportGreat Lakes ApproachSaginawMichigan
Gulfport–Biloxi International AirportGulfport ApproachGulfportMississippi
Great Falls International AirportGreat Falls ApproachGreat FallsMontana
Greater Binghamton AirportBinghamton ApproachBinghamtonNew York
Elmira/Corning Regional AirportElmira ApproachElmiraNew York
Wilmington International AirportWilmington ApproachWilmingtonNorth Carolina
Hector International AirportFargo ApproachFargoNorth Dakota
Youngstown–Warren Regional AirportYoungstown ApproachYoungstownOhio
Altus Air Force BaseAltus ApproachAltusOklahoma
Erie International AirportErie ApproachEriePennsylvania
Capital City Airport (same TRSA as Harrisburg Int'l)Harrisburg ApproachHarrisburgPennsylvania
Harrisburg International AirportHarrisburg ApproachHarrisburgPennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International AirportWilkes-Barre ApproachWilkes-Barre/ScrantonPennsylvania
Tri-Cities Regional AirportTri-City ApproachBristolTennessee
Jack Brooks Regional AirportHouston ApproachBeaumontTexas
East Texas Regional AirportLongview ApproachLongviewTexas
Tri-State AirportHuntington ApproachHuntingtonWest Virginia
Andersen Air Force BaseGuam ApproachTamuningGuam
 
You can have radar approach controls with just a class D and no TRSA. RDG is one. Looking at the sectional, you'd never know it was there. They used to put an R in a circle at those.
 
flyingron said:
You can have radar approach controls with just a class D and no TRSA. RDG is one. Looking at the sectional, you'd never know it was there. They used to put an R in a circle at those.
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Cascade Approach is another one. It's in the Chart Supplement listings for Corvallis and Eugene, Oregon, but is not on the sectional.
 
flyingron said:
You can have radar approach controls with just a class D and no TRSA. RDG is one. Looking at the sectional, you'd never know it was there. They used to put an R in a circle at those.
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R in a circle on the Sectional? Do you mean the A/FD? There is for RDG
 
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flyingron said:
Yep, probably over a decade ago, that symbolized that radar services were available at the airport.
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I was editing that post when you were replying. Just added in reference to A/FD. I don’t remember it on the Sectional, but then I don’t remember lotsa stuff
 
AlleyCat67 said:
Any cases where a tower got removed, and the airspace reverted to Class G or E? I’ve landed a couple of times in Hickory NC and can’t figure out why they have a tower with such little traffic.
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South Lake Tahoe (KTVL) used to have a tower until several years ago.
 
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