THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 13, 1995 TAG: 9504130428
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Five years after ground was broken and three years after construction ended, the new air traffic control tower at Norfolk International Airport is officially open.
A contractor dispute kept closed the $6 million tower until late January of this year, said Arlene B. Feldman, eastern regional administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration, which operates the facility. The building had been complete since 1992 but lacked a radio-telephone system because of that dispute.
Feldman was on hand Wednesday to dedicate the tower before a crowd of federal, state and local officials, and current and retired air traffic controllers. FAA officials have been testing the new communications system and other tower equipment the past few months.
``When this facility opened in late January, the safety of flight in the Hampton Roads region improved dramatically,'' Steven Hylinski, president of the Norfolk Tower local of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
The tower directs all the air traffic originating at and landing at the Norfolk airport.
The new tower is on the eastern side of the airport in Virginia Beach, across the runway from the terminal. It's outfitted with state-of-the-art radar and communications equipment, Hylinski said.
At 134 feet tall, the structure towers above the airport's old 53-foot tower, opened in 1951 atop the old airport terminal. The height gives controllers a complete view of the airport - something they didn't have in the old tower, which didn't even stand above the tree line, Hylinski said.
``The airport had just outgrown the old tower,'' Feldman said.
The new radar system allows controllers to see both aircraft and the intensity of weather systems such as thunderstorms on the same screen, a change that will improve controllers' ability to make decisions quickly, Hylinski said.
The new tower is ``a light-year ahead in sophistication'' compared with the old tower, said James N. Crumbley, chairman of the Norfolk Airport Authority's board of commissioners.
Speakers at the dedication ceremony made several references to the delay in the tower's opening.
``While the outer shell of this structure has stood for some time, we are here to celebrate the arrival of its soul,'' said Shirley J. Ybarra, deputy secretary of the Virginia Department of Transportation.
The FAA had been about to award a contract to install the radio-telephone system in about 30 towers nationwide when the Norfolk tower was completed in early 1992. But two contractors that had bid on installing the systems sued the FAA after they were disqualified.
A federal judge later ordered the FAA to consider their bids. The contract wasn't awarded until December 1993.
The delay pushed the building's cost to a little more than $6 million from $5.8 million. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK/Staff
A crowd of federal, state and local officials turned out Wednesday
to dedicate the new air traffic control tower at Norfolk
International Airport.
by CNB