Eye in the Sky: County's air traffic control tower among 5 in the state

Don Wilkins, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.
·3 min read

May 17—The cloudy skies Tuesday above Owensboro-Daviess County Regional Airport's air traffic control tower made for a slower day than usual for tower manager Joe Lackore.

But despite the down time, Lackore said the tower controller must maintain an eye on the sky and be free from distractions.

Lackore added that many of the private prop-plane pilots operate by using visual flight rules (VFR), meaning they use sight references while flying. Weather conditions often determine the number of planes flying into or out of the airport.

"Most of our days are between 100 and 200 (planes) when we have clear VFR days," Lackore said. "Days like this, we're not going to do very many. We're going to be under 50."

The control tower is manned from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

The airport's protected air space is a 5 mile-radius and 3,000 feet in the air.

"That doesn't mean we don't talk to people outside of that; we do," Lackore said. "We're mostly talking to people who are coming to the airport, and we'll be talking between 10 to 20 miles out."

In Kentucky, there are 52 public use general aviation airports and six commercial airports, with only five of them having control towers.

The other four are Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Louisville International Airport, Lexington Blue Grass Airport and Barkley Regional Airport in Paducah.

Lackore said having a control tower is all about safety.

"Keeping airplanes apart is a significant part of our job, whether they're coming or going or flying through the airspace," Lackore said.

The airport's control tower was built in 1971, and it's owned by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA contracts Owensboro's air control service to Midwest ATC.

"Probably half the traffic that's operated within the United States is contract and the other half is the FAA," Lackore said. "But all of it is governed by the FAA."

To become an air traffic controller, Lackore said a person can be a direct hire by the FAA or can be trained in the military.

The FAA Academy is in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

While there, controllers are trained on aspects such as the proper air traffic terms, FAA regulations, identifying weather and reading charts.

It was in the military that Lackore, a Navy veteran, became a certified air traffic controller.

Lackore, who's managed the Owensboro-Daviess County airport's control tower since 2014, worked for the FAA after the military and later joined Midwest ATC.

That experience is relied on in control towers such as Owensboro-Daviess County's that do not have radars to track planes. The FAA has yet to approve the funding for a radar system that Lackore described as "the No. 1 piece of equipment" an airport can have.

Instead, Lackore said the controllers' knowledge, combined with communicating with pilots and a pair binoculars, ensure planes land and take off without problems.

"Every contract facility in the United States has highly-experienced air traffic controllers — generally who are retired from the FAA," Lackore said. "...There's a mandatory retirement age of 56 in the FAA. So a lot of them can continue on in contract facilities."

Sometime this summer Contour Airlines will replace Cape Air as the airport's essential air service provider. And at the end of this month, Allegiant Air will cease flights out of Owensboro. After 14 years, Allegiant will end its twice-weekly flights to Orlando, Florida, on May 29.

Lackore said there's always been a misconception that having commercial flights dictates whether or not an airport is busy enough to have a control tower.

"The majority of our work nationwide is private GA (general aviation) or contracted flights, such as business jets," Lackore said. "...Our being here has nothing to do with whether or not Contour Airlines or Allegiant is here."