Panama City, FL Airport project.   Panama City, FL opened a new airport; now called the NW Florida Beaches International Airport.  This is the first post 9/11 airport constructed and the first airport built from scratch since Denver Internationals.  The great news is the new airport officially opened on May 23rd with Southwest Airlines now flying into NW FL from four major cities; and RVA providing the vital communications systems.  This was a huge endeavor and an outstanding success story for RVA. The RVA  team first installed the navigational  Instrument Landing System (ILS) and was informed by the FAA Southeast Region our installation  was be “best” ILS installation they had seen in years.  Their statement was validated with the ILS passing three FAA Flight checks with no discrepancies noted on the installation nor the system’s operation.  Thereby, Panama City had a critical navigational system to provide safe and accurate landings for aircraft at the new airport.

Additionally, the RVA team built the airport’s new Remote Transmitter/Receiver (RTR) site; housing all the radio communications for air traffic operations.  This feat was completed within 30 days from Notice to Proceed, and was accomplished simultaneously with the installation of all the communications systems in the new air traffic control tower.  After numerous changes to the design and scheduling, and some major re-shuffling of equipment room racks and systems due to OSHA guidelines, the RVA team completed every installation task, provided crucial training to air traffic controllers on the newly installed equipment, and ensured both controllers and equipment were ready for the airport’s grand opening on May 22nd and official opening on May 23rd.