Aviation View | Volume 2, Issue 1

175 AVIATION VIEW VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1 WEST V I RGINI A INTERNAT IONAL YEAGER A I RPORT States. In the past, we have just been adding and reworking space, countless times, with no real vision of where we were going so, we want to try to modernize everything and be ready for the future. “Another thing we are looking at is a project to create new runway safety areas that would provide the standard 1000 foot long by 500-foot-wide safety area on each end of the runway. Our goal is to have an 8000-foot runway and the safety areas are the first step, which ties into the terminal because we’re looking at airfield improvements. We’re also looking at FAA standards and we have a lot of modifications to standards where the terminal building is so close to the runway and some of the gates are close to the taxiway. The long-term impact of what do we do now is important to what we can achieve in the future. One of the things I’d like is to have a multi-level roadway in front of the terminal building so you have departures on the upper level, where people get out of their cars to we feel they are key to our achieving our vision, which is to be the most important economic engine in West Virginia through advances in aerospace education. Marshall is already looking at expanding and offering a degree program in Aviation Management in the fall of 2022.” BVM: As you expand, what other infrastructure work is planned? Keller: “The next thing we are focusing on is the terminal and air traffic control tower. We started a planning study for the terminal back in August and the goal of this study is to look at the current facility to see if it could be remodeled, rehabilitated, or is we should build a completely new terminal building. It requires asking what the needs are over the next 30 to 40 years for this facility. That study is ongoing but we’re starting to see what the future is going to look like. The terminal control tower certainly needs to be replaced. The tower opened in 1950, so we have the oldest FAA control tower in the United