taxi service between Somerset, Connellsville, and the Greater Pittsburgh Airports. This agreement also involved AAA of Uniontown and United Airlines at the Greater Pittsburgh Airport who helped to handle reservations. Modern Era The airport reportedly fell into relative disrepair in the 1980s and 1990s due to poor pilot attendance/ usage and lack of operating funds. Fayette County received additional medical support by the addition of the Stat MedEvac group to the Connellsville Airport in 1994. Stat MedEvac performs year-round emergency helicopter support to medical emergencies (namely "life flight" capability). This entity owned by the Center for Emergency Medicine of Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh, operates from the sole dedicated helipad on the airport. Revitalization Airport revitalization efforts in the late 1990s resulted in significant improvements after 2001. In 2001, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Education certified and licensed ‘Carnegie Mellon Driver Training & Safety Institute, Inc.’, (CM-DSTI) a non-profit subsidiary of Carnegie Mellon University, PA, to operate a private licensed school. This school, funded under a $7.5 Million congressional appropriation in 1999, provided large truck driver training on the airport property focusing on public transportation safety and security and human performance reliability (stress and fatigue). This included an indoor simulator (valued at approximately $650,000) and hands on training on Taxiway F (old decommissioned runway) This school occupied three buildings at the heart of the Connellsville Airport (formerly buildings occupied by the USMC Reserve Training Center). The school, which had 60 employees and a $12 Million annual budget, operated at the airport location until about 2002. VVS has received on numerous occasions Federal funding for improvements to the facilities and runways specifically from the Aviation Development Program (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) after 2001. In 2005, the new terminal opened at a cost in excess of $2,000,000. In 2009, VVS received $1 million from Federal (Rural Community Assistance Partnership grant) and state sources to extend the main runway (runway safe zone project). This extension, using allocation of Federal and state money, allows for larger aircraft to land at Connellsville Airport. KVVS also received grant money to improve general aviation hangar space in close proximity to the new terminal built in 2005. This money totaling $1 million from a Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) grant has to be spent on aviation hangar spaces and requires airport matching funds of approximately $800,000. As of August 2011, no construction date has been set. The county