Colorado and its two main airports in mile-high Denver and Colorado Springs to the south are not often associated with air freight, certainly not on the order of Houston George Bush International.

But the Colorado Springs Airport is part of a multi-million dollar project involving two branches of the U.S. military and millions of pounds of equipment and personnel.

The $52 million Arrival Departure Airfield Control Group, or ADACG, will open in fall 2008. The highly secure facility, located on 81-acres south of the passenger terminal building, has an enormous ramp capability of parking six C5s, which will be bathed in light at night by seven 140-foot tall lighting masts.

Mark Earle, aviation director for the airport, described it as a "rapid deployment facility" for troops and equipment processing from nearby Ft. Carson Army base, and the rest of the West.

The airport owns the land on which the facility sits and the U.S. Air Force provides the terminal services. But the Army holds primary responsibility for the facility.

In commercial news, Earle said plans by Denver-based Frontier Airlines to build a maintenance facility at the airport have been put on hold until the carrier emerges from bankruptcy.

Robert W. Moorman