"Tom S." wrote in message ...
"Mike Granby" wrote in message
...

I'm based at THV (York) so I get in and out of LNS quite a bit. The
controllers there are indeed very helpful, but I never realized it was a
contract tower. You live and learn, I guess. How would one go about
confirming whether another airport was a contract tower or not, I wonder?

On the sectional or other chart it says "NFCT" for Non-Federal Control
Tower.

There is a differece. NFCT does mean Non-Federal control tower, but
very few contract towers are NFCT. NFCT signifies that the tower is
contracted by the airport owners/managers. In other words, the FAA
has no involvment in procuring services for the tower. A "contract
tower" is where the FAA has contracted with a private company to
provide ATC services. An NFCT usually exists where a municipality
wishes to have a tower, but there are not enough annual operations on
the field to justify the FAA paying for it. The municipality is free
to pay for their own tower and contract.

So, all NFCTs are contract towers, but very few contract towers are
NFCTs. I recall that either Glendale (GEU) or Goodyear (GYR) in the
PHX area used to have the NFCT designation on the sectional, but it's
not there anymore. Looks like both have enough operations for the FAA
to foot the bill for the tower contract now.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)