AvGeek alert: There is a new amenity-rich remark space at Charlotte Douglas Worldwide Airport

AvGeeks and followers of airport remark areas now have a cause to plan a visit to Charlotte.

Charlotte Douglas Worldwide Airport (CLT) has formally opened its new everlasting Airport Overlook. The 600,000-square-foot remark space has an expansive and inclusive array of facilities that rival the views.

About 3 miles from the primary terminal space, the overlook gives planespotters a perfect perch for views of the airfield, the skyline and the terminal. After all, that is what you’d anticipate from an airport remark space. It is also what CLT’s 4 earlier overlooks, relationship again to 1937, supplied.

Nevertheless, the brand new Airport Overlook has a great deal of fashionable and really welcome bells and whistles.

For starters, it options LED lighting, loads of paved and accessible parking for automobiles and buses, and an expanded meals truck staging space. Plus, Airport Overlook has pet aid areas, restrooms with child altering stations, bicycle racks, picnic tables and shaded areas to flee the solar.

There are additionally two age-specific, aviation-themed playgrounds on-site; they provide a play-safe runway and climbable constructions, akin to a miniature air visitors management with a slide, a miniature gas truck and a baggage cart.

Children and adults who’re curious in regards to the historical past of flight and need to understand how airplanes and airports work can learn the data panels. The panels element the varieties of planes that fly out and in of the airport, and so they clarify every little thing from why planes can fly to how runways are constructed and named. A brief historical past of CLT is included.

Overlook guests can even admire a retired U.S. army fighter jet, an F-4 Phantom II, that flew through the Vietnam Conflict and the Chilly Conflict. Moreover, they will spend time on the memorial devoted to US Airways Flight 1016. That flight, which was touring from Columbia, South Carolina, to Charlotte, crashed close to CLT on July 2, 1994, killing 37 folks and injuring at the very least 20 others.

“The Airport is aware of how essential the Overlook is to the area people and we labored diligently to create a spot that individuals of all ages will take pleasure in,” CLT chief infrastructure officer Jack Christine mentioned in an announcement. “This area showcases many shows and options that may educate, encourage and create lasting reminiscences.”

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That is CLT’s fifth remark space. The primary location dates again to 1937. The newest location opened in 1989 and closed in October 2022 to make method for the airport’s North Finish-Round Taxiway and future Fourth Parallel Runway; a short lived space was obtainable through the development, although.