Jackson Hole Airport

N801BH

N801BH

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
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Jul 7, 2008
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17,188
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Jackson Hole Wy
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FBH
Some of you guys and gals have flown in here and know the airport.

As you arrive you can see a very nice 8 year old control tower and 300 feet away a 3 year old radar complex. Everyone who sees this thinks ' hey kool, this airport is up to speed on traffic separation'.

Well, the truth is the information derived off that radar is sent to SLC for them to use via 200 miles of wire. Oddly enough, the local airport manager and board decided not to run a cable the 300 feet to the tower and add a display screen so they have that same traffic data for the tower controllers to use to sequence incoming and outgoing traffic. 99.9% of the people see the tower and radar and get that warm fuzzy feeling of safety. This airport does roughly 370,000 passengers enplanements a year through the main terminal. That does not count in the GA side, which is probably 80 % of the total 30,000 a year operations. Between the high traffic count, poor weather conditions and the terrain here traffic awareness is paramount and the great controllers we have here are at a huge disadvantage by having only their eyeballs to use for safely running the tower.

It was apparently funded by the FAA a few years back to install that connection and display but in our recent attempts to push this safety issue forward the airport is now saying those funds are not available anymore. We are not quite sure what those funds were actually spent on.:dunno:

Attached, I hope, is a FAA safety seminar circular showing a upcoming meeting here. If you are passing through that day we could use pilot comments. If not I will try to edit this post with a way for you guys and gals to submit your feelings to the proper channels.

Here is a email address to send comments to. rick.schmidt@serco-na.com

Thanks in advance for anything you can do.


Ben Haas
AOPA, ASN for Jackson Hole Wy. KJAC
 

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I need to make a correction....

The "tower display" was not funded by the FAA. It must be purchased by the airport and an agreement must be developed between the airport and the FAA for maintenance responsibility.

Sorry for the mis info...

On another note. Has any pilots flown into an airport with this much traffic and had a radar site on the field that was not hooked up to a class D tower cab?

I am trying to get some baseline on if JAC is a "unique" situation. :hairraise:


Ben Haas.
 
N801BH said:
On another note. Has any pilots flown into an airport with this much traffic and had a radar site on the field that was not hooked up to a class D tower cab?
Click to expand...
I didn't even realize that KJAC had a radar site on the field. I guess I'm used to the fact that at many mountain airports they lose radar contact pretty far out because of the terrain. Come to think of it I seem to remember that even at KJAC that Center doesn't pick you up until a fairly high altitude however I haven't been there since at least the beginning of the year so things could have changed.
 
N801BH said:
On another note. Has any pilots flown into an airport with this much traffic and had a radar site on the field that was not hooked up to a class D tower cab?

I am trying to get some baseline on if JAC is a "unique" situation. :hairraise:


Ben Haas.
Click to expand...

Not exactly what you are asking but Missoula (used?) to have an interesting situation where Spokane approach was responsible for approach services there through a RCO. The class D tower obviously had access to the feed based on how they were calling out traffic to non-participating arriving and departing VFR traffic.
 
alaskaflyer said:
Not exactly what you are asking but Missoula (used?) to have an interesting situation where Spokane approach was responsible for approach services there through a RCO. The class D tower obviously had access to the feed based on how they were calling out traffic to non-participating arriving and departing VFR traffic.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. I will look into that to see how they approached it. :thumbsup:

Ben.
 
"High traffic count"? Its 29,002 operations in 2009 ranked 462 out of 510.
 
Thats the 2009 count for the tower only. Does not include operations when the tower is closed and does not include planes passing through the airspace. What seems small potatoes to some is quite the challange for JAC tower during peak times of day. We are the top airport in Wyoming by a facter of 7 times over the next one and on any given night there are 3-5 757's, a few Airbuses and some RJ's overnighting. Not counting dozens of large GA jets with "high profile" clients in them.

Also 2.1 miles due west is the Tetons that are 13,700+ high. Talk about terrain. :eek::eek: :fcross:.

Ben.
 
N801BH said:
Thats the 2009 count for the tower only. Does not include operations when the tower is closed and does not include planes passing through the airspace. What seems small potatoes to some is quite the challange for JAC tower during peak times of day. We are the top airport in Wyoming by a facter of 7 times over the next one and on any given night there are 3-5 757's, a few Airbuses and some RJ's overnighting. Not counting dozens of large GA jets with "high profile" clients in them.

Also 2.1 miles due west is the Tetons that are 13,700+ high. Talk about terrain. :eek::eek: :fcross:.

Ben.
Click to expand...
Total tower operations was 29,730--now 465 out of 510. The operations when the tower is closed are irrelevant when trying to justify the radar display.

I know I would want to have radar if I was working in the tower, but if I were the person who had to fund it out of a limited budget I might not think it was absolutely necessary. Any idea what the estimated cost would be?
 
Tell that to the almost 400,000 airline passengers that fly in here yearly.

The cost works out to pennies per passenger.

LIke any other government calculation it will take a near miss or an actual mid air for action to take place. Seeing how Jackson/ Teton County has the higheast income per capita just one biz jet with billionairs falling to the ground will jump start that process. Maybe. :incazzato:

Thanks for your comments sir.


Ben.
 
N801BH said:
Thats the 2009 count for the tower only. Does not include operations when the tower is closed and does not include planes passing through the airspace. What seems small potatoes to some is quite the challange for JAC tower during peak times of day. We are the top airport in Wyoming by a facter of 7 times over the next one and on any given night there are 3-5 757's, a few Airbuses and some RJ's overnighting. Not counting dozens of large GA jets with "high profile" clients in them.

Also 2.1 miles due west is the Tetons that are 13,700+ high. Talk about terrain. :eek::eek: :fcross:.
Click to expand...
I looked up KEGE (Eagle, CO) which is a similar type airport. It shows 30,107 tower operations compared to 29,002 at KJAC. The tower at KEGE does not have radar coverage as far as I know because they always ask you to report a certain distance out on final or over a particular fix. Center radar also doesn't pick up departures until they reach a certain altitude because of the terrain. I think KEGE has more challenges because of the terrain than KJAC. Although the mountains aren't as high, they are closer and there is a substantial hill off the west end of the airport which makes it impossible for IFR approaches from that direction and causes the required climb gradient to be very steep.

I think more radar coverage would be great at both airports but I don't think Jackson stands alone in this respect.
 
N801BH said:
LIke any other government calculation it will take a near miss or an actual mid air for action to take place. Seeing how Jackson/ Teton County has the higheast income per capita just one biz jet with billionairs falling to the ground will jump start that process. Maybe. :incazzato:
Click to expand...

The unfortunate part is that a near miss or an actual mid-air will result in an action, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense to. Seems reasonable enough in this case, the case in the Hudson I'd say it wasn't.
 
Everskyward said:
I looked up KEGE (Eagle, CO) which is a similar type airport. It shows 30,107 tower operations compared to 29,002 at KJAC. The tower at KEGE does not have radar coverage as far as I know because they always ask you to report a certain distance out on final or over a particular fix. Center radar also doesn't pick up departures until they reach a certain altitude because of the terrain. I think KEGE has more challenges because of the terrain than KJAC. Although the mountains aren't as high, they are closer and there is a substantial hill off the west end of the airport which makes it impossible for IFR approaches from that direction and causes the required climb gradient to be very steep.

I think more radar coverage would be great at both airports but I don't think Jackson stands alone in this respect.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insight ma'am.

The shear stupidy of our situation is the radar site in 300 feet from the tower now. Been operating for years. In fact I can be squalking 1200 while taxiing and SLC center can see me so the infrastructure is in place. All that is needed is 300 feet of wire and a display. Seems simple to me but I was never one to look at things from the government point of view. :idea:

Ps. can you round up the figures for KEGE in regards to airline passenger counts ?

Thanks in advance.

Ben.
 
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As a visual aid here is a pic of the situation.
 

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bbchien said:
They oughta be able to Wifi that feed. Or Laser feed it. Sigh.
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They could microwave it, but I seriously doubt the issue is the 300 ft. More likely, its the cost of the equipment required on either end to make it work.
 
Actually there are two levels of concern. An airport user's group could easily fund a wireless feed.

But there are security and reliability concerns about such a feed. So long as nobody tries to get it upgraded to a TRSA-like setting (Charlie) it would remain an adjunct tool for a VFR tower like the old BRITE. Lots of hoops.
 
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