Towered class E airports

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Marc O Anderson

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mxasf
Hi all. I have been a pilot for about 10 years (flying around SF/oakland area), and generally have considered towered airports to be in class d/c/b. (No exception)

Was just looking at the Denver TAC chart and saw Fort Collins (KFNL) has a tower with class E airspace (magenta circle, no airspace ceiling). Google searching "towered class E airport" didn't really show anything. Is KFNL the only one?

I guess you would fly into KFNL with same radio communication as class D, with no worry of "busting" the airspace.
=mxasf=
 
Temporary towers sometimes appear for big events in Class E and G airspaces. I have no knowledge of KFNL, however.
 
They sort of have airspace like class D -- you need to have contact with the tower if you are within 4 miles of the airport and below 2500 feet. I'm sure someone will find the actual FAR.

Edit (I found the FAR):
§ 91.127 Operating on or in the vicinity of an airport in Class E airspace.
...
(c) Communications with control towers. Unless otherwise authorized or required by ATC, no person may operate an aircraft to, from, through, or on an airport having an operational control tower unless two-way radio communications are maintained between that aircraft and the control tower. Communications must be established prior to 4 nautical miles from the airport, up to and including 2,500 feet AGL.
 
Cool, thanks. I guess there must be some underlying (legal?) reasoning for designating it class E instead of class D.
Also I guess you could also theoretically "bust class E airspace" around KFNL. Kinda unusual.
Thanks for the FAR!
=mxasf=

ColoPilot said:
They sort of have airspace like class D -- you need to have contact with the tower if you are within 4 miles of the airport and below 2500 feet. I'm sure someone will find the actual FAR.

Edit (I found the FAR):
§ 91.127 Operating on or in the vicinity of an airport in Class E airspace.
...
(c) Communications with control towers. Unless otherwise authorized or required by ATC, no person may operate an aircraft to, from, through, or on an airport having an operational control tower unless two-way radio communications are maintained between that aircraft and the control tower. Communications must be established prior to 4 nautical miles from the airport, up to and including 2,500 feet AGL.
Click to expand...
 
And a little more background on KFNL -- it's a "remote tower" where the controllers aren't in a tower, but sit in a trailer and use cameras on a mast near the runway to sequence traffic. I also don't think they have a radar feed from DIA like KBJC and KAPA do.
 
KJYO has a tower - one of those temporary remote towers and its in class E under the bravo.
 
Marc O Anderson said:
Hi all. I have been a pilot for about 10 years (flying around SF/oakland area), and generally have considered towered airports to be in class d/c/b. (No exception)

Was just looking at the Denver TAC chart and saw Fort Collins (KFNL) has a tower with class E airspace (magenta circle, no airspace ceiling). Google searching "towered class E airport" didn't really show anything. Is KFNL the only one?

I guess you would fly into KFNL with same radio communication as class D, with no worry of "busting" the airspace.
=mxasf=
Click to expand...

It happens. There are Towersin Class G also. KFNL is one of the Remote Tower projects. Read something awhile back that it’s supposed to get out of the ‘project’ phase and become official so to speak, sometime soon. Maybe that’s why it is not designated D yet.
 
Marc O Anderson said:
Cool, thanks. I guess there must be some underlying (legal?) reasoning for designating it class E instead of class D.
Also I guess you could also theoretically "bust class E airspace" around KFNL. Kinda unusual.
Thanks for the FAR!
=mxasf=
Click to expand...

I agree -- it's unusual and since the airport airspace doesn't show up on the charts, I bet a lot of pilots transition through it without realizing they were supposed to contact the tower. I think the charts should have some way to depict the area.
 
ColoPilot said:
They sort of have airspace like class D -- you need to have contact with the tower if you are within 4 miles of the airport and below 2500 feet. I'm sure someone will find the actual FAR.

Edit (I found the FAR):
§ 91.127 Operating on or in the vicinity of an airport in Class E airspace.
...
(c) Communications with control towers. Unless otherwise authorized or required by ATC, no person may operate an aircraft to, from, through, or on an airport having an operational control tower unless two-way radio communications are maintained between that aircraft and the control tower. Communications must be established prior to 4 nautical miles from the airport, up to and including 2,500 feet AGL.
Click to expand...
How does one operate an aircraft "through" an airport? Does no one at FAA proofread these regs after they copy/paste from one section to another?
 
Lindberg said:
How does one operate an aircraft "through" an airport? Does no one at FAA proofread these regs after they copy/paste from one section to another?
Click to expand...

c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800.jpg

_59582dba-9f17-11ea-88a1-96031f43cf2a.JPG
 
This remote tower business seems ridiculous to me. If an airport is busy enough to justify a tower, then it should have a tower. FNL can be a zoo, with a mix of slow taildraggers and fast corporate jets, and a lot of traffic. Seems like someone is always going the opposite of everyone else in the pattern. Seems like all they are saving in the one-time cost of building a tower, as the remote operation will still need to be staffed.
Jon
 
Yeah, typical FAA bureaucracy at its worst. When the pseudo-ICAO alphabet airspace was crammed down our throats in the 1990s, they promised that uncharted, mystery airspace wouldn't exist. In fact, they eliminated the concept of such an airport traffic area. Of course, the establishment of controlled airspace requires a rulemaking procedure. The establishment of a control tower just takes a building and some humans. The FAA quickly realized that the latter may proceed faster than the former, sot they brought back the provision to put towers in E/G airspace and enforce pilots having to use them. Essentially, we're back to t he same old bogosity of the Airport Traffic Area (which wasn't controlled airspace by itself, unless there was a TCA, ARSA, or Control Zone with it). Of course, you've got klunky nonterms like "Control tower in Class E airspace" and "Surface area of controlled airspace designated for an airport" now because the convenient terms were ICAO'd into oblivion.
 
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4CornerFlyer said:
This remote tower business seems ridiculous to me. If an airport is busy enough to justify a tower, then it should have a tower. FNL can be a zoo, with a mix of slow taildraggers and fast corporate jets, and a lot of traffic. Seems like someone is always going the opposite of everyone else in the pattern. Seems like all they are saving in the one-time cost of building a tower, as the remote operation will still need to be staffed.
Jon
Click to expand...

But now the "tower" and controllers could be outsourced to a foreign call center where labor is cheaper!

Seriously, I'm not sure what the savings are. Maybe there is a way one set of controllers could handle 2 airports that by themselves don't justify a tower? Although, I'd be surprised if that would work, since the setup is a room full of monitors to simulate the windows in a tower. A while ago, McDonalds experimented with have the drive-thru order taker being remote from the restaurant -- I didn't understand what the savings were for that either. Must not have been that good, since I've never heard about it again.
 
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Lindberg said:
How does one operate an aircraft "through" an airport? Does no one at FAA proofread these regs after they copy/paste from one section to another?
Click to expand...

Another classic example. Totally in violation of the FAR...

Screenshot_2021-06-17-15-39-56-1.png
 
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ColoPilot said:
But now the "tower" and controllers could be outsourced to a foreign call center where labor is cheaper!

Seriously, I'm not sure what the savings are. Maybe there is a way one set of controllers could handle 2 airports that by themselves don't justify a tower? Although, I'd be surprised if that would work, since the setup is a room full of monitors to simulate the windows in a tower. A while ago, McDonalds experimented with have the drive-thru order taker being remote from the restaurant -- I didn't understand what the savings were for that either. Must not have been that good, since I've never heard about it again.
Click to expand...

you can consolidate management, operate out of low-cost areas, and cross-train controllers to work more than one tower. That way you have more staffing flexibility and less overtime costs.

it's also much cheaper to put a bunch of cameras on a mast than build and maintain an ADA compliant control tower.
 
Remote towers make a lot of sense in places where their regulations require a control tower for scheduled service to occur. They consolidate multiple remote towers into a center and controllers take shifts manning them. Avinor in Norway has done this successfully.

Some sprawling airports could benefit by being able to reduce down to one tower instead of two or three (Paris CDG, Amsterdam, come to mind) or just provide better SA to some in the US like Atlanta, Dallas, etc.

Some of the technology in remote towers is really impressive for low visibility operations that use IR and sensor data to overlay data tags and information directly on the out-the-window view or provide a nightvision capability. The studies being done in the US will likely migrate some of that tech over to larger towers in a few more decades (progress is slow in the FAA). The Air Force also has field trials going on for remote towers.

Not having to build and maintain a control tower is a benefit, but the infrastructure and redundancy required to feed massive data streams to and from airports is an important consideration.
 
ColoPilot said:
Maybe there is a way one set of controllers could handle 2 airports that by themselves don't justify a tower? Although, I'd be surprised if that would work, since the setup is a room full of monitors to simulate the windows in a tower.
Click to expand...

This configuration has three airports being controlled by one person. I don't think this has seen any operation yet but it is possible. Norway just opened a remote tower center late last year.
upload_2021-6-17_18-11-47.png
 
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