Being out of state for a while gives me a chance to catch up on a few of those videos I mentioned a while back. Here's one of them.
I was asked to put something together for the Western Regional FAA Annual Conference in San Francisco this past May, and decided to use some of the photos I've done of the FAA's new air traffic control tower project at Kona International Airport. Since I'm currently travelling I don't know for sure how much the project was affected by the recent budget hubbub in Washington, D.C., but I assume they may have had to shut down for at least a few days somewhere along the way. Hopefully everybody is back again and getting paychecks.
The FAA conference was held on June 6. The video is current through about May 24th or so and shows progress panoramas and a couple time lapse videos of interesting elements of the project. The contractor's work is scheduled to complete early this fall. From there the FAA will proceed with installation and testing of their electronic equipment. Full operations out of the new digs should be ready to begin sometime in Fall 2012.
Dave,
ReplyDeleteGreat video!! I post a link to it on my blog.
Not sure why they opted for a 119 foot ATC vs something taller. The runway is 11,000 feet...which isn't fully visible from the new tower. It's such a waste of tax money to build something "temporary" just to make way for a taller ATC soon after that.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where the Anonymous commentor got their information, but I doubt they were in the FAA's AFTIL visualization room with us in 2007 when the selection was made for this site and cab elevation.
ReplyDeleteThere is no question that all airfield movement area surfaces at Kona Airport will be visible from the cab of the new control tower, including not only all existing runway and taxiways but the master-planned future parallel runway and heliport.
Air traffic control tower site selections nowadays are a rigourous process that includes the preparation of a complete 3D surface model of the airport and visual projection all sites under study in a mock-up facility prior to final selection. A final selection is only made upon completion of a Safety Management Analysis report that either eliminates all risks or recommends design or operational measures to mitigate them. Key in this analysis is the ability to see all areas being controlled.
It’s really a nice and helpful piece of info. I’m happy that you shared this helpful information about construction of tower and related items thanks for sharing us.
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