Nationwide, there are 5,918 heliports in the U.S. today. Yet only 58 are open to public use, and approximately 90 percent do not support refueling or other services. So, this is not just a Minnesota issue. While the FAA provides design recommendations, the specifications are only required if the heliport receives federal grants through the Airport Improvement Program. Only one heliport in the U.S. has ever used AIP funding for construction (Indianapolis Downtown Heliport). Also, many of the nation’s heliports are currently located in highly desired urban locations but are inactive due to local ordinances on noise levels. Ideas for locating new vertiports include repurposed tops of parking garages, existing helipads, and underutilized land surrounding highway interchanges. While these options could, potentially, form the basis of an extensive, distributed network of vertiports, consideration must also be given to land use requirements, infrastructure requirements, and community input.
The Air Mobility Strategic Plan is an important part of providing statewide leadership and a shared vision and strategy for enabling safe, fast, and reliable air transportation for the citizens and businesses of Minnesota through partnership and innovation. Balancing technology capabilities with strategic planning will offer exciting new passenger and air transportation options for cities throughout Minnesota. While these new technologies continue to be refined and developed by private industry over the next several years, MnDOT’s statewide leadership will promote a shared vision and strategy to enable safe, fast, and reliable air transportation that benefits the citizens and businesses of Minnesota through planning, partnership, innovation and engagement. Although the future is unknown, MnDOT’s Air Mobility Strategic Plan is an important step in helping us prepare for an unknown future by informing policy development, fostering innovation, creating an environment of inclusion, and promoting local and regional aviation ecosystems for deployment. q
Improved Internet Services Coming To Many Minnesota Airports
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by Kris Christenson
MnDOT Navigations Systems Radio Engineer
nDOT’s Office of Aeronautics has been working on several programs to improve communication services at Minnesota’s local general aviation airports. The first of these improvements – improved internet services – will be rolled out in the coming months. Currently, most internet Kris Christenson connections at Minnesota’s public general aviation airports are conventional DSL lines with max speeds of 1.5Meg down/768k up. When you are used to home speeds of 150 meg down and 30 meg up and faster, it is hard to imagine how slow and clunky this is until you are at the airport competing with a few of your aviation friends for bandwidth! Minnesota’s general aviation airport internet service supports two main functions. First, it allows pilots to easily access the AWOS data sent via our National Airspace Data Interchange Network provider, AnyAWOS. AnyAWOS enables our one-minute AWOS Weather updates. You can get those updates over the internet at www.anyawos.com/k###, or access through our online mapping app at mndot.gov/ aero/navigationsystems/awos-map-online.html. Second, faster internet supports our public-use internet kiosk MnWAS (Minnesota Weather Access System). The kiosks are available at each arrival-departure building for flight planning, weather updates or other needs a pilot may have to access the internet
while traveling about. Our vision for the future is to utilize wireless 4G LTE data service providers that deliver typical internet speeds averaging 25Meg down/5Meg up. We have tested this equipment for about 12 months in various spots around the state to make sure it is dependable for all the services MnDOT supports. With these upgrades, our equipment will be able to support in-building Wi-Fi service. Pilots and guests of the airport will be able to access this service on their own Wi-Fi enabled devices. We recognize that most of the pilots going through the airports have their own device and may use it for filing flight plans and closing flight plans. We also know that in this new norm of teleworking, many pilots and guests alike will enjoy the access. We also recognize that there is a growing need for internet services to be available on the ramp areas. This could be that last-minute weather check or downloading a clearance to your device before departure. We are developing a solution for this, and plan to provide outside Wi-Fi coverage to the ramp area right around the tie-downs and passenger loading and unloading areas. Once Wi-Fi to the ramp is installed, pilots should be able to file a flight plan from their airplanes while sitting on the ramp at Detroit lakes and land at Morris, Minnesota and close their flight plan – all without leaving the cockpit or with the need for any data plan. Beyond improved services for pilots and other airport guests, the improvements will add remote network management and cut operating cost by more than half! We continue to look for new ways to improve internet connections and service. Look for future articles for more exciting news from your Navigation System Team. q AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2021 MIDWEST FLYER MAGAZINE 35
