Print Email Font ResizeLoveland's airport considered for 'virtual' towerNew technology would answer air traffic safety questionsBy Tom Hacker Reporter-Herald Staff WriterPosted:
A plane takes off in 2008 from the Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport. The airport is being considered for a virtual tower. A successful alternative could open the door for the return of Allegiant, and enhance efforts to recruit additional commercial carriers.
(Reporter-Herald file photo)A first-in-the-world solution to air traffic control might be in the offing for Loveland's airport with city, state and federal collaborators working on a system that would make a control tower unnecessary.
Denver consultant William Payne described a "blended airspace" traffic management system at a November meeting of the two-city committee that runs the Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport, and the cities have been inching toward implementation since.
The "blended airspace" project is an outgrowth of a system that monitors aircraft around three Colorado mountain resort areas, where terrain and remote locations make air traffic control a challenge.
Stakes are high for making such a system work in Loveland, since Allegiant Air, the region's only commercial carrier, pulled out of the market abruptly last year citing the lack of a control tower as the primary reason.
A successful alternative could open the door for the return of Allegiant, and enhance efforts to recruit additional commercial carriers.
'Virtual' Tower
"I think we can help, with this new technology that is the next generation of air traffic control," said Dave Gordon, Colorado Aeronautics Division director and former Loveland airport manager. "We can provide an alternative to traditional construction of a control tower."
Loveland's is among four Colorado airports in the running for the new system that relies on small, remote sensors that gather information from aircraft, fix their precise positions and relay the information to controllers in a central location.
The other contenders are Montrose, Durango and Hayden.
The enhanced system would also track movement of vehicles, and even animals, on the ground near airport runways.
"It's a whole new generation of technology, and Colorado will be the pilot project," Payne said Thursday.
'Skin in the Game' Fort Collins and Loveland officials are preparing formal requests to the Colorado Aeronautics Division and Federal Aviation Administration for funds to implement "blended airspace" technology as an alternative to a tower at Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport. Denver consultant William Payne said the requests should reflect a commitment from the cities to chip in financially for the project. "In implementing the first phase of this system, we found that local communities that have skin in the game are the ones that are successful," Payne said. "It will take participation by local governments."Payne is working with the Colorado Aeronautic Division of the state transportation department and the Federal Aviation Administration, the agencies that will provide most of the funding for the project.
Cost Factors
Construction of a tower at the airport owned by Loveland and Fort Collins would cost at least $3 million, and obligate the cities to more than $500,000 in annual operating expenses.
The blended airspace system could be installed for far less -- Payne said he was still working on cost figures -- and without the continuing operational costs.
"Technology is not the limiting factor with this," Payne said. "The limiting factor is legacy thinking. There's a lot of inertia behind doing things the way they've always been done."
Colorado's billion-dollar-a-year ski industry drove a predecessor to the project being considered for Loveland.
The Colorado Surveillance Project collects and distributes flight data in mountainous areas where radar tracking is iffy at best, and flights are often delayed.
'Top of the List'
Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez said Thursday the project was a topic of discussion at meetings last week among city officials and members of the state legislature and Colorado's congressional delegation.
"We want to be at the top of the list," said Gutierrez, who serves with Fort Collins' mayor and the two city managers on the four-member Airport Steering Committee. "The blended airspace issue is one that we're going to be spending a lot of time on."
Gordon said he hoped the system, if implemented in Loveland, would be a key to attracting commercial air service.
"I've got a long history with Fort Collins-Loveland," Gordon said. "I helped get Allegiant in there, and I hated to see them leave. ... Bill Payne has talked, and I've talked, with Allegiant about blended airspace. Will it bring back Allegiant? Who knows. Will it bring another carrier? We hope so."
Loveland airport manager Jason Licon said he hoped that his airport would play the key role in pioneering a system that will be adopted globally.
"Control towers are low-tech," Licon said. "They date from the 1920s, when it was a man with a pair of binoculars. This is breakthrough technology."
Tom Hacker can be reached at 669-5050, ext. 521, or .Print Email Font ResizeReturn to Top Related Stories