by Kris Christenson The Left Seat: Flying Cross-Country A Lot? A Timeshare May Work For You! -

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

by Kris Christenson

MnDOT Navigations Systems Radio Engineer while traveling about. Our vision for the future is to utilize wireless 4G LTE data service providers that deliver typical internet speeds averaging

MnDOT’s Office of 25Meg down/5Meg up. We have tested this equipment for Aeronautics has been about 12 months in various spots around the state to make working on several sure it is dependable for all the services MnDOT supports. programs to improve communication With these upgrades, our equipment will be able to services at Minnesota’s local general support in-building Wi-Fi service. Pilots and guests of the aviation airports. The first of these airport will be able to access this service on their own Wi-Fi improvements – improved internet enabled devices. We recognize that most of the pilots going services – will be rolled out in the through the airports have their own device and may use it for coming months. filing flight plans and closing flight plans. We also know that

Currently, most internet in this new norm of teleworking, many pilots and guests alike connections at Minnesota’s Kris Christenson will enjoy the access. public general aviation airports We also recognize that there is a growing need for internet are conventional DSL lines with max speeds of 1.5Meg services to be available on the ramp areas. This could be that down/768k up. When you are used to home speeds of 150 last-minute weather check or downloading a clearance to your meg down and 30 meg up and faster, it is hard to imagine device before departure. We are developing a solution for how slow and clunky this is until you are at the airport this, and plan to provide outside Wi-Fi coverage to the ramp competing with a few of your aviation friends for bandwidth! area right around the tie-downs and passenger loading and

Minnesota’s general aviation airport internet service unloading areas. supports two main functions. First, it allows pilots to easily Once Wi-Fi to the ramp is installed, pilots should be able access the AWOS data sent via our National Airspace Data to file a flight plan from their airplanes while sitting on the Interchange Network provider, AnyAWOS. AnyAWOS ramp at Detroit lakes and land at Morris, Minnesota and close enables our one-minute AWOS Weather updates. You can get their flight plan – all without leaving the cockpit or with the those updates over the internet at www.anyawos.com/k###, need for any data plan. or access through our online mapping app at mndot.gov/ Beyond improved services for pilots and other airport aero/navigationsystems/awos-map-online.html. Second, faster guests, the improvements will add remote network internet supports our public-use internet kiosk MnWAS management and cut operating cost by more than half! (Minnesota Weather Access System). The kiosks are available We continue to look for new ways to improve internet at each arrival-departure building for flight planning, weather connections and service. Look for future articles for more updates or other needs a pilot may have to access the internet exciting news from your Navigation System Team. q