John Galban wrote:
"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.

In the end it is irrelavant as all towers must train their controllers
to the same specs as FAA controllers. All non FAA towers get periodic
inspections from the FAA tower with jurisdiction for that area. As an
example my tower oversees Bozeman, MT. Out tower chief occasionally
goes over there to inspect paperwork, etc.