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Crystal River Airport officials hope an FAA emergency transmitter will improve the link with air traffic controllers.
By BRIDGET HALL
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 14, 2000
CRYSTAL RIVER -- On cloudy or stormy days, pilots taking off from the Crystal River Airport must get clearance from Jacksonville air traffic controllers to fly higher than 700 feet.
Because the airport lacks the necessary radio transmitter, pilots cannot radio in from the cockpit for that clearance. They have to make a telephone call from the airport, then rush out to board their plane, taxi and take flight before the 10-minute clearance window closes.
"If you can't make it within that 10 minutes, you've got to come back down and call in again for another clearance window," airport manager Tom Davis said. "It's a very unwieldy situation."
Davis and others are hoping that equipment from the Federal Aviation Administration will change that.
The FAA has asked the county for permission to put a backup emergency communications facility at the Crystal River Airport. Jacksonville air traffic controllers would only use this transmitter to reach planes if their regular communications or power lines were down, FAA spokeswoman Tanya Wagner said.
"They put (the emergency transmitters) in remote locations so if there is a problem, they have a backup to rely on," Wagner said. "This one would give coverage over the Gulf of Mexico and the Panhandle area."
But the transmitter would also carry a frequency that pilots could routinely use to radio in to Jacksonville from their planes instead of calling from the airport, Davis said.
"Because the transmitter has the frequency we would be using, we don't see how it would be a problem," Davis said. "We fully expect (the FAA's) cooperation on that."
In most situations, the FAA signs a traditional land lease and pays the airport for use of the area where the communications system is installed.
In this case, however, Assistant Public Works Director Ken Frink has suggested that the FAA compensate the Crystal River Airport with in-kind services: allowing pilots to use one of the transmitter's radio frequencies, and connecting Crystal River's automated weather station to the national weather tracking system.
Currently, Crystal River weather information is available to anyone who calls the airport directly, but air traffic controllers in Jacksonville and other cities do not have access to that information from their computers.
"A pilot departing from Nashville, Tenn., cannot get Crystal River weather information," Davis said. "As you're working this approach, Jacksonville will tell you they have no weather information available for Crystal River. Jacksonville ought to have that information right up there."
Hooking the Crystal River Airport's weather station to the national system would cost several thousand dollars, and Wagner said the FAA may not have any extra money budgeted to cover that expense.
The FAA will continue negotiating an arrangement with the county. The owner of the airport, the county, makes the final decision on whether the FAA can install its communications facility there.
"I don't see why we wouldn't (allow the system to be installed)," Davis said. "It's a public service that benefits everyone.