Talk:Indianapolis International Airport

Control of Monroe County Airport

I've heard that this airport's control tower also remotely controls the Monroe County Airport after certain hours. Is this true? -- Mark 08:29, 22 June 2007 (EDT)

The ARTCC facility at the Indianpolis airport != the "tower" you see by the runway at the airport. As far as air traffic control goes, divide the country into 20 blobs, and the one over Southern Indiana and Ohio is the ARTCC facility (which is actually across the street from the airport on the north side.) As far as a pilot needing to ask "hey, is it snowing down there?", they'd call the Flight Service Station at Terre Haute when the tower in Bloomington is closed. And when they're both closed, then they call Indianapolis. Jkonrath 20:16, 1 July 2007 (EDT)

From the little I remember from my flying lesson (yes, singular); when the tower at our airport is closed, the pilots use the radio frequency assigned to BMG to communicate among themselves when landing and taking off. They probably also observe a standard left hand approach to whichever runway lies along the direction of wind (two runways, four directions). BMG is also equipped with a device to turn on the runway lights via multiple clicks on the PTT (push to talk) button on a frequency other than the communication frequency. The lights then turn off after 15 minutes or so.

If I remember right, IND is a Class B airspace and BMG is a Class D. The airspace classification indicates how large a control area is granted to the tower when the tower is staffed. The control airspace resembles an upside down layer cake, with the largest layer specified as the max control radius. The IND Class B does not reach down to Bloomington, so BMG VFR (visual flight rules) traffic would not be controlled by IND under normal circumstances. IFR (instrument flight rules) traffic has already filed a flight plan and is controlled by one of the regional IFR controllers regardless of the local control, other than take-off/landing at a controlled facility. Learning to fly was really interesting and I'd like to pick it back up sometime, but the time and cost are not easy to meet with an infant in the house. Chris Eller 20:40, 1 July 2007 (EDT)