Aviation View Magazine | Volume 1, Issue 4

153 AVIATION VIEW VOLUME 1, ISSUE 4 ROCKY MOUNTA IN METROPOL I TAN A I RPORT lot of different uses for the community,” explains Ben Miller, Airport Communications Director. “We are categorized as a reliever airport for Denver International and we are a significant hub for corporate and general aviation. We host several Fortune 500 companies’ hangars and flight departments on our field and there is a manufacturing presence, as well.” This is especially true with Pilatus Aircraft Ltd, which operates a 120,000-square-foot completion onsite facility. They make aircraft in Switzerland and fly them to Colorado for completion. “That’s an area right there where we have seen growth at the airport,” says Miller. “Pilatus has been here for nearly 25 years; this is their American Headquarters and Completion Centre. Since they got here, they would fly in these newly produced planes, and then fly them to another facility for painting. It was adding flight hours to brand new aircraft, so they are building a new 28,000 square foot paint facility right next to their headquarters.” RMMA has indeed come a long way in a short period. In 2012 the Federal Aviation Administration dedicated a new state of the art control tower, in the Spring of 2018, Sheltair Aviation Services signed a second FBO lease agreement to designate the airport their “Gateway to the West” and later that same year Pilatus opened its new headquarters and completion facility. Among its other ‘regular’ functions, the airport terminal hosts the Blue Sky Bistro, a locally owned restaurant that is a popular destination for breakfast and lunch. Physically, the airport covers an area of 1,700 acres at more than 5600 feet above sea level. It has three asphalt paved runways: 12L/30R is 9,000 by 100 feet; 12R/30L is 7,002 by 75 feet, and 3/21 is 3,600 by 75 feet. Prior to COVID, RMMA was seeing almost 500 operations a day. If you include all the businesses at the airport, there are 3,000 employees across 450