Carson airport benefits from bailout

The $9.6 million runway project at the airport is by far Carson City's biggest stimulus project.

Airport manager Casey Pullman said that when completed, the realigned and extended runway will open the door to a lot more business at the airport, allowing the biggest business aircraft and more charter planes to land in Carson City.

The project by Granite Const-

ruction, Pullman said, is really the second step in a series of improvements that will take the airport into the future. The first was physically removing the 80-foot-tall hill that used to sit at the end of the runway.

With that gone and the direction of the runway changed slightly, he said aircraft can now make a much safer direct approach.

In the past, the Carson Airport operated as a visual flight rules facility only.

"Removing the hill allowed us to have an instrument approach," he said.

Pullman said another project that will start construction this week is installation of a system that will allow pilots across the country to get an immediate weather report telling them whether they can land in Carson City. That project is an estimated $180,000 in additional work funded by the Federal Aviation Administration.

"A lot of charter operations won't come into an airport if it doesn't have forecasted weather," he said.

When the work is completed, Pullman said, the airport will be able to handle aircraft up to 100,000 pounds - including business jets such as the Gulfstream.

The airport will also be safer, providing taxiways on both sides of the runway so that aircraft no longer have to cross the runway itself to get to a taxiway.

The runway reconstruction will also get rid of what amounts to a hill in the middle of the runway. Pullman said planes taxiing across the runway can't see a plane starting its take-off run at the east end of the runway and there has long been the potential for an accident.

"By this construction project, we're opening up to different users," he said.

The changes will also mean more revenue not only for the airport but Carson City because charter planes landing here will fill their fuel tanks and the city gets tax revenue from that.

In the future, he said, it may also open the way to charging larger aircraft a landing fee, generating more revenue. Small private planes, he said, don't have to pay landing fees.

Even more revenue is generated from planes that list Carson City as their base because they must pay an annual personal property tax.

The airport gets a third of that money. The rest, he said, goes to the city general fund.

The runway project, which also includes taxiway lights, has been in the works for some time, but was moved up when stimulus funding became available. It should be completed by the end of the year.