Unusual Attitudes: FAA's Tower of Babel

Unusual Attitudes: FAA’s Tower of Babel

Martha Lunken

Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 07:21 PM ET

Verified

The tower under construction at Dayton.

Key Takeaways:

The FAA proposed relocating Dayton's Tracon (air traffic control radar facility) to Columbus due to declining local air traffic, raising concerns among users and the controllers' union about transparency, safety, and local knowledge.
A new, expensive, FAA-funded control tower was controversially built at Dayton, but its design was modified to exclude the Tracon facility, leaving it without radar operations and primarily serving administrative functions.
Ultimately, the FAA's national Tracon realignment plan, which included the Dayton move, was suspended.

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Please Plan on Attending” was the subject line in an e-mail from Marty Bevill at Wapakoneta airport (“Wapak” to the locals) about 100 miles north of Cincinnati. Officially AXV, it’s the Neil Armstrong Airport at New Knoxville in Auglaize County, nestled in mid-Ohio farm country south of Lima. The airport namesake grew up in Wapak and soloed a Champ on his 16th birthday at a nearby airport called “Port Koneta,” which has since reverted to corn and soybeans. Today Wapakoneta is one of a gazillion GA hard-surface airports served by the Tracon at Dayton Airport, officially DAY, the Dayton Cox International Airport at Vandalia in Montgomery County, nestled in the Miami Valley … but I digress.

The message was about an FAA meeting that “would address” proposed operational changes at Dayton tower, specifically the relocation of the Tracon to Columbus, Ohio. The airport operator was hopeful that, if enough users voiced strong and valid objections, the feds would rethink this move.