New airport tower provides 10-mile unobstructed view

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August 14, 2008

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Thu Aug 14, 2008, 11:18 PM CDT

By Debby Woodin

dwoodin@joplinglobe.com

Area taxpayers will get a chance to see what their money bought — and catch 10-mile views around the Joplin Regional Airport — at an open house Sunday for the $3.5 million air traffic control tower.

The tower will be open to the public from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.

At 90 feet in height, it is nearly twice as tall as the old tower next to the airport’s existing terminal building, airport manager Steve Stockam said Thursday. It took a year of evaluating locations on the airport property for the Federal Aviation Administration to approve the site for the new tower. It is northeast of the old tower and southeast of the new terminal, which is due to open next month.

That site will give air traffic controllers a better view than that from the old tower, said Paul Holland, a supervisor of Midwest Air Traffic Control, a company contracted by the FAA to operate flight-control service in Joplin.

“We are excited about the new tower because we can see much farther, and we have an unobstructed view of all the (runway) approaches,” Holland said. “In the other tower, we have used binoculars a lot more.”

Those unobstructed views provide a greater level of safety by allowing controllers to see how close planes and jets are flying or moving around on the taxiways.

The tower is void yet of radios, computers and air-traffic screens, so its high-tech building materials and amenities may not be apparent. Equipment will be installed starting next week, and plans call for the new tower to be completely furnished and in operation within the six to eight weeks.

Technology is a big component of the new construction, Stockam said. Computer wiring runs through the floor of the tower’s top level, and carpet blocks that cover the floor can be removed for access to wiring.

The glass windows encompassing the top floor of the tower, where the controllers will work, are Thermopane windows installed with bladders designed not to flex as they heat up and cool down or to cause double images that could confuse a controller, Stockam said. The window panes had to be tested after they were installed and certified as FAA-compliant; one failed and had to be repaired.

Blinds made from a transparent film are to be installed on the west windows to cut the glare of the sun. The custom-made blinds, which also had to be approved by the FAA, cost $10,000.

“Even the chairs have to meet FAA specifications,” Stockam said.

Federal tax dollars alone were used to pay for the tower and will fund its operation by the contracted controllers, said Tony Molinaro, an FAA spokesman at the agency’s Chicago office. He said contracted workers are used in smaller airports across the United States.

In the Midwest, contracted controllers work at airports in Columbia, Jefferson City and St. Joseph in Missouri, and Manhattan and Garden City in Kansas.

Asked why Joplin needs air traffic control, Molinaro said there are several reasons. Joplin had 29,000 takeoffs and landings last year. St. Joseph had 32,000, and Columbia and Manhattan had 28,000 each.

“It’s not just the number (of takeoffs and landings),” he said. “It’s also the type of aircraft and the complexity of the airspace.”

Airplanes and jets of all sizes that fly through the airspace over and around Joplin to larger airports must be kept at appropriate distances by flight controllers, Molinaro said.

Holland said the local controllers monitor aircraft flying not just over Joplin, but also those in eastern Kansas and western Missouri that are outside the range of controllers in Kansas City.

Stockam said a number of corporate jets and a variety of planes and jets are flown by hobbyists or private pilots out of the Joplin airport. The city also is planning for passenger service to restart soon at the airport after the pullout this summer by Air Midwest and the selection of Great Lakes Aviation to provide subsidized passenger flights between Joplin and Kansas City.

Those passenger jets fly faster than small airplanes, which poses a safety concern, Stockam said.

A Great Lakes spokesman did not return telephone and e-mail messages this week seeking comment on whether advance tickets are being purchased by Joplin customers and whether the airline is on track to start service in Joplin as scheduled on Sept. 8. The service will be subsidized by the federal Department of Transportation.

The new tower was a separate project from the construction of a new $15 million terminal building at the airport that is due to open next month, Stockam said.

Disabled visitors who want to attend the tower’s open house should be aware that the upper floor of the tower cannot be reached by elevator. That is because an elevator shaft would have obstructed the view on that floor, and controllers need a 360-degree view, Stockam said.

Visitors can reach the tower by taking Missouri Highway 171 to Colonial Drive, east of the airport, and turning north for a half-mile. There is a chain-link fence at the gate at the tower’s entrance.

Tower replacement

Steve Stockam, manager of the Joplin Regional Airport, said the new tower replaces one that was built in 1952 or 1953. The completion date of the old tower is not clear in airport records, he said.