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Maddie Bush, a student pilot from Utah State University, discusses the challenges of flying at Logan Cash Airport. The airport is one of the busiest non-towered airports in the country, with over 30 planes in the air at once. The lack of an air traffic control tower makes it difficult to maintain traffic separation. Pilots have been advocating for a tower, but the waiting list is long due to the high cost of construction. Without a tower, pilots rely on communication and avoidance systems to stay safe, but close calls are frequent. As the airport continues to grow, the need for a tower becomes more urgent to prevent more serious incidents. Hi, my name is Maddie Bush. I'm a student pilot out of Utah State University. I'm currently working on my instrument rating. I've spent the last year and a half of my life training out of the Logan Cash Airport. With over 100 hours of flight time, I'm acutely aware of the issues coming out of my local airport. With two large flight schools at the airport, Logan Cash is one of the busiest non-towered airports in the country. Utah State University alone has almost 400 students in the aviation program. This, coupled with the students training out of other local flight schools, creates an airspace that often has upward of 30 planes in the air at one time. This level of traffic, contained by mountains on all sides, creates a unique situation where traffic separation is incredibly difficult to maintain. For years, pilots out of this airport have said that we would benefit from an air traffic control tower. An air traffic control tower, also known as ATC, is a tall building at an airport that allows for a controller to have a good view of the airport and surrounding traffic. The controller's job is to communicate with aircraft via radio. They tell pilots when they can take off, land, where to go, and how to avoid other aircraft. This is how all large airports operate. If you have ever flown on a commercial airliner, the pilots of your plane were in contact with ATC during the flight. At smaller, less popular airports, used mostly by general aviation aircraft, the airport is uncontrolled. This means that we all talk to each other without the help of ATC. This works very well at the majority of airports, but at airports like Logan Cash, we are running out of space. With more and more aircraft flying out of Logan, we are having a harder and harder time communicating with each other. You can only keep track of so many people at one time while also focusing on flying an airplane. While learning to fly at a busy airport is a great way to learn how to communicate effectively and get good at spotting aircraft quickly, it can be really dangerous. Logan has close calls way more often compared to the typical, untowered airport. This is simply because we need a tower for the level of traffic in the air. Unfortunately for us, however, the waiting list for a tower can be upwards of a decade. This waiting list is caused mostly by the price tag of a tower. According to the FAA, each new tower costs millions of dollars to construct at an average price of $40,000 per foot of height. These costs lead to as few as seven towers being built each year. Because of the long wait list for a tower, USU has strict procedures all pilots are required to follow that keep everyone safe. Unfortunately, we can't control other aircraft and have to rely on communication and air traffic avoidance systems, which often means moving out and away from a plane that doesn't even know you're there. Just today, I had to avoid a plane that made no radio calls and cut in front of me in the pattern. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about this until we have an air traffic control tower. So, as we wait our turn for a tower, we will continue to stay extra vigilant as the airport continues to grow. We will continue to rely on procedures and do our best to avoid close calls. However, as much as we do to negate the issue without other proper solutions, it's only a matter of time before the consistent close calls turn into something worse.
