Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Steven Petibone | The antiquated World War II-era airport control tower is currently used for U.S....... read more read more
Story and photos by Sgt. 1st Class Steven Petibone
138th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
MOSUL, Iraq - Rising seven-stories over Forward Operating Base Diamondback, Mosul, Iraq, is a newly constructed, state-of-the-art Mosul Airfield airport control tower.
The new control tower replaces the out of date World War II-era, four-story control tower constructed by the British.
Approximately a year ago, the U.S. State Department commissioned the House Armed Services Committee to initiate the new construction and renovations project in Mosul in order to transition it to civilian use.
The State Department awarded a $10 million contract to a Turkish general contractor specializing in airport construction to construct the tower and an adjoining administration office building in compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards.
The ICAO standards are administered by the United States Federal Aviation Administration's office located in Baghdad.
Before the project could begin, the State Department realized that the U.S. Army and Air Force were using the Mosul Airfield for on-going rotary and fixed-wing contingency flight operations. An aviation team was created to oversee the safe operations of the airfield.
"Construction started a year ago this month," said Chief Warrant Officer James Davis, airfield management team leader. "Our purpose was to get with the contractor to make sure he could do his work while, at the same time, continuing military rotary and fixed-wing operations."
Two other team members include Air Force Master Sgt. Ken Hellmer and Senior Airman Crystal Nicole.
Davis and his team operate four army airfields in the northern part of Iraq.
"Mosul was a new concept where the U.S. Army moved in and took over an existing airfield." said Davis, "After [the Air Force] lost an aircraft to a landing accident at FOB Qayyarah West, the Air Force mandated that the Army establish procedure to look after the four Army airfields."
Presently, construction is 90 percent complete, according to Davis. The new tower is self-contained using its own source of water, sewage disposal and fire prevention sprinkler system. The tower will also include a metal detector, closed-circuit security camera system and an elevator. The adjoining administration building contains modern office space complete with Internet, phone and electrical outlets.
Other state-of-the-art equipment is in the form of navigational aids to assist in aircraft landing and take off. This equipment consists of a very high frequency omni-directional range with distance measuring equipment device that detects aircraft movement from approximately 150 miles away, a Category One Instrument Landing System with required components of a glide slope and localizer transmitters, middle marker with ceilometers, high intensity runway lights, medium intensity taxiway lights, approach lighting systems on both runway approaches, precision approach path indicator lights and runway rubber deposit removal.
According to Davis, there are final issues that U.S. and Iraqi governmental authorities need to resolve such as the sources of primary and secondary electrical power, hiring and training Iraqi personnel to operate the airport and securing new aircraft to fly from Mosul to Baghdad.
Even with unresolved issues the intent of the U.S. Army and Air Force is to continue using the Mosul airfield until the time when it is transitioned over to the government of Iraq.
| Date Taken: | 08.16.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 08.16.2006 11:49 |
| Story ID: | 7452 |
| Location: | MOSUL, IQ |
| Web Views: | 486 |
| Downloads: | 129 |
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