How Craig Field's new control tower led to latest $1.3M flight academy deal

Returning an air traffic control tower to Craig Field was key to landing a $1.3 million deal with Resicum International to bring its aviation academy and maintenance contracts to the former Air Force base, officials said. 

When leaders cut the ribbon for a new mobile air traffic control center at Craig Field in Selma on Jan. 20, they said that having an airport with controlled air space would attract business to Dallas County. Just a week later, the same leaders announced the deal with Resicum International and its subsidiary Aeropro.

The mobile tower, which will soon be followed by a virtual control tower, will make Selma the hub of a system that can provide virtual air traffic control for up to 40 airports. Craig Field Airport will also be the center for training controllers to operate the new system created by Advanced ATC. 

Dallas County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Wayne Vardaman said they wouldn’t have scored Resicum without getting the control tower first.

“It’s hard to open an aviation facility like (Resicum) without a controlled airfield,” Vardaman said. “The key to all this growth was getting a tower in here.”

Craig Field has a concrete control tower dating back to World War II, but it is in disrepair and had not been used for years. Air traffic controllers in Montgomery directed aircraft in and out of Craig Field. 

Selma took over control of its airspace in the last few weeks when ATC completed a state-of-the-art remote tower – the first like it in the Western Hemisphere – that now houses controllers overseeing Selma’s airspace and communicating with 40 airports.

Having that tower in place means more aviation projects are on the horizon, Craig Field Airport and Industrial Park Executive Director Jim Corrigan said.

“This allows Craig to have flight schools and more business and brings more jobs to Craig and to Selma,” Corrigan said. “If you build it, they will come.”

Since coming to Craig, Advanced ATC established an air traffic control school that has its first class in session now with two students from Dallas County.

Craig is working to renovate dorm space on the former base for those students and for students coming in to become pilots and mechanics for Aeropro, Corrigan said.