Okay trivia buffs, where’s the highest control tower in the world? Before you say Quito, La Paz or Kathmandu, an extra qualifier–the highest above the landing surface. The answer is Vancouver, British Columbia. But not the tower at Vancouver International Airport, whose cab is a puny 142 ft above the airport surface. The world champ is in the city’s downtown district, where at 465 ft msl atop a high-rise office building sits the Nav Canada tower controlling traffic at Vancouver Harbour Airport (BC7), a seaplane aerodrome.
Last year, the harbor tower oversaw 59,970 landings and takeoffs and 33,782 overflights, up from 57,781 and 29,411, respectively, in 1999. Roughly 60 percent of these were seaplanes and 40 percent were helicopters, with the latter arriving and departing from a four-pad heliport just off the shoreline. Almost all the landings and takeoffs were by commercial and scheduled traffic, while the overflights include sightseeing tours, banner tows and, on weekends, recreational fliers. Overflights also include movie shoots, the result of Vancouver’s seeming transformation in the summer into Hollywood North, with sound trucks and miles of cable snaking along the waterfront streets.
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