Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport is a public-use

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

located in

Broomfield, Colorado Broomfield is a consolidated city and county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. Broomfield has a consolidated government which operates under Article XX, Sections 10-13 of the Constitution of the State of Colorado. The Broomfield populatio ...

, United States. The airport is owned and operated by Jefferson County and is situated midway between

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

and

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

U.S. Highway 36 U.S. Route 36 (US 36) is an east–west United States highway that travels approximately from Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado to Uhrichsville, Ohio. The highway's western terminus is at Deer Ridge Junction, an intersection i ...

. It is located northwest of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

of Denver, and is the closest airport to downtown Denver. The airport covers and has three

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s. Formerly known as Jefferson County Airport or Jeffco Airport, the airport was renamed Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport on October 10, 2006, although it is sometimes referred to as Rocky Mountain Regional Airport, e.g. on 2007–2012 county planning documents. This airport is included in the

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. NPIAS was developed and now maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It identifies existing and proposed airports tha ...

for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a ''

reliever airport A relief airport or reliever airport is an airport that is built or designated to provide relief or additional capacity to an area when the primary commercial airport(s) requires additional capacity, on a long-term or temporary basis. Reliever a ...

''. It is home to a large

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

population including a fair amount of corporate traffic and several

flight school Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills. Flight training can be conducted under a str ...

s. The airport's proximity to the nearby Interlocken business district contributes to its business traveler clientele. It has a

control tower Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...

on 118.6 (local) and 121.7 (ground) that is open from 0600 to 2200 local time. ATIS/

AWOS Airport weather stations are automated sensor suites which are designed to serve aviation and meteorological operations, weather forecasting and climatology. Automated airport weather stations have become part of the backbone of weather observing ...

broadcasts on 126.25. There are three

s - 12/30 Left and Right, and 3/21. The runway numbers were changed in November 2014 to reflect a change in magnetic variation. Two

fixed-base operators A fixed-base operator (FBO) is an organization granted the right by an airport to operate at the airport and provide aeronautical services such as fueling, hangaring, tie-down and parking, aircraft rental, aircraft maintenance, flight instruction, ...

(FBOs) offer fuel and other services. A BAe 146-RJ85A converted for aerial firefighting operations

History

On February 7, 2012, the Federal Aviation Administration dedicated a new $23.7 million, state-of-the-art airport traffic control tower, located south of the airport runways. The new facility includes a 124-foot-tall control tower topped by a 525-square-foot tower cab with four air traffic controller positions and one supervisor position. A 6,000 square-foot, single-story base building houses administrative offices, training rooms, and equipment rooms. KBJC Pilatus Hangar

In the summer of 2018,

Pilatus Aircraft Pilatus Aircraft Ltd. is an aerospace manufacturer located in Stans, Switzerland. In June 2016, the company employed 1,905 people. The company has mostly produced aircraft for niche markets, in particular short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraf ...

officially launched operations out of their newly constructed hangar located on the southwest corner of the airfield. In the spring of 2018, the airport signed a lease agreement with a second FBO, SheltAir, to act as their "gateway to the west". SheltAir commenced operations in February 2019 with a temporary

modular building A modular building is a prefabricated building that consists of repeated sections called modules. Modularity involves constructing sections away from the building site, then delivering them to the intended site. Installation of the prefabricated ...

located at the East Ramp area. Construction for the permanent building and hangar was expected to commence in the spring of 2019. There exists a vacant tract of airport-owned land just southwest of the runways. Currently, the airport is in the planning stages to develop this area, known as "The Verve", for various aviation and non-aviation related uses.

Facilities and aircraft

Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport covers an area of 1,700

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s (688 ha) at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

of 5,673 feet (1,729 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has three

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

paved

s: 12L/30R is 9,000 by 100 feet (2,743 x 30 m); 12R/30L is 7,002 by 75 feet (2,134 x 23 m); 3/21 is 3,600 by 75 feet (1,097 x 23 m). The airport's three runways, previously 11L/29R, 11R/29L, and 2/20, were renumbered in November 2014 in order to align them with magnetic directions. At the same time, the primary runway (12L/30R) underwent an $8.83 million renovation. For the 12-month period ending September 30, 2018, the airport had 175,759 aircraft operations, an average of 482 per day: 92%

, 4%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) an ...

, 3%

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

and <1%

air carrier An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which ...

. At that time there were 360 aircraft based at this airport: 70% single-

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

, 17% multi-engine, 9% jet, and 4%

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

. Two

fixed-base operator A fixed-base operator (FBO) is an organization granted the right by an airport to operate at the airport and provide aeronautical services such as fueling, hangaring, tie-down and parking, aircraft rental, aircraft maintenance, flight instruction, ...

s (FBO)s operate at the airport:

Signature Flight Support Signature Aviation is a British multinational aviation services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The company has been known by numerous names over the years, having been founded as ''W. Wilson Cobbett Ltd'' in 1879; it was ren ...

and Sheltair. The

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...

also maintains its Jefferson County Tanker Base at the airport. On July 13, 2016,

broke ground on a new 188,000 sq. ft. North American completion center for the new PC-24 business jet. The facility became fully operational in June 2018.

Airlines and destinations

The airport was formerly a hub for

Pet Airways Pet Airways was an American company headquartered in Delray Beach, Florida, that specialized exclusively in air transportation of pets. The airline claimed to be the first designed specifically for pets where pets flew in the main cabin, not in ca ...

before ceasing all flights in early 2013. Denver Air Connection operated by

Key Lime Air Key Lime Air is a United States airline with corporate headquarters at Centennial Airport in Englewood, Colorado, within the Denver metropolitan area. Established in 1997, Key Lime Air operates scheduled air service, various types of public and ...

also operated from RMMA to Grand Junction before consolidating their operations for the Denver-Grand Junction route to

Centennial Airport Centennial Airport is a public use airport owned by the Arapahoe County Public Airport Authority in the Denver-Aurora metropolitan area, 15 nautical miles (17 mi, 28 km) southeast of downtown Denver, Colorado, United States. L ...

in May 2017.

Accidents and incidents

*On July 17, 2022, A Cessna 336 twin-engine plane operated by Bluebird Aviation went down outside of Boulder, Colorado. The pilot and the three victims departed from

Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport is a public-use airport located in Broomfield, Colorado, United States. The airport is owned and operated by Jefferson County and is situated midway between Denver and Boulder on U.S. Highway 36. It is locat ...

on a sightseeing trip to the mountains around Boulder, Colorado. Killed in the crash was the pilot, who was not immediately identified by authorities, 48-year-old Sandra Kirby of Louisiana, and her two children, 17-year-old Ian Kirby, and 13-year-old Amanda Kirby. The cause of the Colorado crash is under investigation. *On September 18, 2022, a Cessna 172 that took off from this airport with two people on a training flight, collided in Boulder County with a Sonex aircraft that had taken off from the

Platte Valley Airpark Platte Valley Airpark is a public-use airport three miles northwest of Hudson, Colorado, Hudson, in Weld County, Colorado, Weld County, Colorado, United States. It is privately owned by Platte Valley Airpark Ltd. and is northeast of Denver, Color ...

with only one person on board, its pilot. Both airplanes crashed and were destroyed on impact, killing all three people on board them.

References

External links

Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport
(official site)
Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC)
at

Colorado DOT The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT, pronounced See Dot) is the principal department of the Colorado state government that administers state government transportation responsibilities in the state of Colorado. CDOT is responsible f ...