Traverse City Record-Eagle

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  • Douglas Tesner

    Control Tower Cherry Capital Airport

  • Douglas Tesner

    Control Tower Cherry Capital Airport
March 12, 2009

$11.2M earmarked for traffic control tower

By BRIAN McGILLIVARY

TRAVERSE CITY -- Climb into the air traffic control tower at Cherry Capital Airport and step back to the days before the digital age.

Equipment in the 35-year-old tower still features dials and gauges, computers have floppy drives, and the back-up generator is a rack of 12 car batteries with connections protected by sections of vinyl gutter.

"How many people can say they've been at a job for 20-plus years and they are still using the same computer," said John Hlavka, a veteran air traffic controller stationed in Traverse City.

That's about to change, thanks to an earmark, a form of federal spending that acquired a dubious reputation -- unless the money lands in one's own back yard.

The Federal Aviation Administration will break ground this year on a new tower after $11.2 million was earmarked for the project in a recent spending bill. The tower should be complete by 2012.

Airport officials have wanted to replace the tower, built in 1974, for the last 10 years, said airport Manager Stephen Cassens.

The project started rolling about three years ago and airport and FAA officials credit the area's congressional delegation, specifically Rep. Dave Camp and Sen. Carl Levin, with getting the original money to start the $28 million project. More than half the funding was appropriated in prior years, so the FAA sponsored this year's earmark, not a member of Congress.

"These towers had a normal life expectancy of 20 years, and this one's was up in 1995, so we're a little past due for a new tower," said Ron Hubbard, airport traffic control manager.

The FAA already has devised the new tower in its virtual reality laboratory, resulting in a 160-foot-tall structure to be relocated a couple hundred yards east of the current location and back from the two intersecting runways.

Hubbard said the current tower sits in the runway safety setback area and can block pilots' views of the crossing runway. It's 80 feet tall, too short to offer a view over an airport hangar that blocks controllers' views of the airport's busiest intersection.

"In the new tower we'll be able to see every inch of pavement in the airport," Hubbard said.

The new tower will have a support building at its base, improved security, and state-of-the-art equipment, Hubbard said.

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