New Airport Under Construction Near Panama City

The FAA will be testing instrument landing equipment next week for the 10,000 foot runway under construction at Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport near Panama City in the Florida panhandle.

The testing will fine-tune the ILS system for the new facility, slated to open in May of this year. The runway has already been extended by 1,600 feet from the original design, and construction is expected to cost about $318 million by the time Southwest lands its first flight there May 23rd.

Next week’s “test” is not so much a test as a “data-collecting exercise,” Jeff Dealy, airport relocation manager for Kellog, Brown, and Root (KBR), told the Panama City News Herald. “This is a major milestone for the project,” he said. “And it’s all coming together right on schedule.” KBR is the project construction manager.

A specially-equipped FAA aircraft will fly multiple approaches, gathering data on the ILS. The testing is required for FAA certification of the runway. "The plane will spend a lot of its time off-site testing the instrument landing systems,” said senior program manager Roy Willett of KBR.

Dealy said crews have been working hard to meet the deadline for Tuesday's exercise. Along with regularly scheduled service by Southwest, the airport hopes to attract non-stop charter flights from Europe to Florida's northern Gulf Coast.

The new airport's identifier will be "KEPC" when it opens in May.

FMI: http://newpcairport.com