Pueblo Memorial Airport Considers Leasing Space to Army

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Pueblo’s City Council last night discussed a proposal that would allow Ft. Carson’s HAMET program, or High Altitude Mountain Environment Training, to rent space at the Pueblo Memorial Airport.

If approved, the HAMET program would operate out of two hangers and use runway space for about four months. Fort Carson would be responsible for all utility costs, and be required to make improvements on occupied hangers. Fort Carson spokesman Major Earl Brown says using the Pueblo airfield would help eliminate overcrowding at Fort Carson due to construction.

We are doing a lot of upgrades to our airfield. And this would allow us to be able to allow other tenant units that are not with Fort Carson to come to the area and utilize the high mountainous terrain that we have west of Fort Carson for training that they would see in the similar type of environment that they would see in Afghanistan.

Training would include ten to twenty flights per day to the mountains using primarily Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters. The airport, city council, and army are expected to conduct test-runs to evaluate potential noise levels sometime in the future. For KRCC news, I’m Katherine-Claire O’Connor.