The radar center will help guide planes flying over most of New England.

MERRIMACK, N.H. (AP) – The Federal Aviation Administration has opened a new, state-of-the-art radar center to guide flights leaving or arriving over a wide swath of New England.

The Boston Consolidated Terminal Radar Approach Control, or TRACON, was dedicated on Friday.

The $50 million center handles flights from New Hampshire’s Lake Region south to the Rhode Island border, east to Cape Cod, and west to central Massachusetts including Manchester Airport and Logan International.

“This is the latest and greatest the FAA can provide,” facilities manager Wayne Hamilton said Friday.

The new system takes flight and weather information collected by radar installations throughout the region and displays it on monitors used by air traffic controllers.

The center fits into a system that includes controllers at individual airports and controllers at another FAA center in Nashua.

Planes taking off or landing are handled by air traffic control towers at airports from the ground to an altitude of about 2,000 to 3,000 feet.

After that, tracking the aircraft is “handed off” to TRACON facilities, which track the aircraft up to cruising altitudes of about 12,000 feet. From there, the planes are tracked by FAA centers, such as the Boston Center located in Nashua.

The Merrimack facility will employ about 160 people and will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It handles about 2,000 flights a day.

FAA spokesman Jim Peters said the FAA looked into 70 sites. The two top were in Merrimack and the third was in Nashua.

Selection criteria included cost of living, schools, churches, and available employment for spouses.

AP-ES-05-15-04 1451EDT