Oct. 18--Real-time flight information at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport should be available within two weeks on monitors in the terminal, on the phone and over the Internet. The main runway will return to service next month and the planned modifications for passenger screening will be done before Thanksgiving.

Those were the highlights of progress reports at the airport's Advisory Board meeting Monday.

The 2-mile long main runway has been closed for six weeks for rehabilitation.

"A majority of the work is done," said Richard McConnell, assistant airport manager. "It needs to be painted and we should have it open again first of the month right on time or a little bit ahead of schedule."

Installation of the monitors and computer software will be completed Monday, delayed because of a technical glitch, he said.

The addition of a screening lane at the checkpoint will be moved farther into the concourse to accommodate the equipment, said Richard McCollum, the airport manager.

"The construction should start within a week," he said. The board and the Texas Aviation Historical Society also dedicated the Distinguished Flying Corps Hall of Fame, a display in the main hallway of the airport terminal between the restaurant and the Kritser Conference Room.

Amarillo's location and the vast expanse of the Panhandle and its ranches fostered a wide interest in aviation, said Bob Izzard, a hall of fame member and former fighter pilot who was shot down over France two days after World War II's D-Day. The first airport was southwest of the city, and what was the runway is now Julian Boulevard. The Y is where the runways of the then-called "Bivins strip" crossed, Izzard said.

"Bivins and all of the other people in the cattle business in Amarillo had a long ways to go, and the airplane was an answer for them," he said.

The municipal airport and what became English Field also were instrumental in fostering aviation in Amarillo, he said. "As a result of the early people in aviation, a lot of young people in Amarillo became interested in it and learned to fly at a very young age."

The stories of the early pilots and their distinguished service in war and peace are "what we're here for. The English Field Museum is to preserve that."

Jack Barnes, president of TAHS, presented McCollum with a large framed print of the Columbia STS-107 space shuttle lifting off. McCollum has announced his retirement after 27 years at the airport.

"Rich, we say thank you for a job well done," Barnes said. "We wish you fair winds and following seas."

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