PCAA quarterly meeting 2021 Jun 14 clip 13:26 D - David T-G E - Ed Wood B - Don Boggus A - Al Loveless R - Randy Thomason P - Phil Eberly W - Wendell Turner D Hi there! My name's David - Get Inspired Flight. We're a business at the airport, and first of all, I'd like to really thank the airport and the Authority and the County for maintaining the grass on the East side of the runway. I know that we've had some mower issues recently and there've been difficulties, but we really depend on and enjoy it, and a lot of folks, a lot of other pilots do. So thank you, very much, for doing that, for putting out that effort and -- I'm sure -- that cost that goes behind it. That's pretty cool. E Remember that is not an approved and authorized runway -- D Understood ... it's a grass area. E -- and is maintained as we can, -- D Understood E -- but there is no guarantees that it will be maintained on an ongoing basis. We try to do so, but ... D Yeah ... That's absolutely fair, and that's another reason to say thank you. 'Cuz I know that, we know that you don't have to, but a lot of the tailwheel pilots really appreciate having it, and it's part of what makes Pickens County Airport Pickens County Airport. So that's awesome. Get Inspired Flight did have something we wanted to address to bring to the airport in hopes of improvement, though. The area in front of Joe Aircraft and Get Inspired Flight is a pretty narrow, congested area, and it turns out that it is not actually designated as a taxiway -- there's no taxiway line there -- and so we've had jets and other large aircraft come through, trying to get to the fuel pumps, and this actually came to a head the other day. There was actually an incident. Two aircraft collided. I was in our plane with our, with a student, just getting ready for engine start, when another aircraft came from the South Square hangars, came straight across, and wanted to go to the fuel pump, and pushed forward to the point where his plane hit our plane. So ... We had not started yet; I got out, put my hand between the aircraft, and said "I can't move my plane without damaging your plane and damaging my plane". So we separated everything, and that was fine, but that really brought to a head that this is a congested place. Joe Aircraft has cars there all of the time that need to come and go for his business, has airplanes pull up, if there's an airplane in that hangar, airplane pulls up in front of the hangar ... It really isn't well suited for a pass-through. If I were to compare to a controlled airport, I'd call it a non-movement area. Or to compare it to a grocery store, I'd call it to the parking spaces; you don't really want to cut across parking spaces, you want to go up and down the lane lines. You want to go on the taxiways where the aircraft are meant to move. And so we also don't like to just complain. It occurred to us, as we were looking at the issue, there are tiedowns running from North to South from essentially in front of the fuel pumps on toward the South to just about in front of Joe Aircraft, and there's ... what is that, a dozen or so? Three of those, the northernmost three, kind of block access to the fuel pump, which means it's difficult to get there. This person coming out of the South hangars, could have turned onto the taxiway, gone over, come and gotten to the fuel pump like, you know, anyone coming off of the ramp or coming from the A, B, C, D hangars down there, having to get on a taxiway to do it, but the idea of coming in and turning around is a little bit tight. So if those three tiedowns were essentially closed, possibly relocated to the South end of the tiedowns, where there's a taxiway line that just stops and ends -- you know, it isn't supposed to be a continuous through taxiway -- that would provide more room around the fuel pumps for aircraft to come in, turn, fuel, and then head out and leave. In addition, like I said, we've had a jet come through and try and, you know, negotiate his way through there because it's confusing; there aren't effective markings. There are taxiway end markings that can be painted here that indicate "this isn't going any farther; you're coming here for a couple of tiedowns or for these tiedowns, that's fine, but this is not a throughway". Similarly, coming off of the taxiway, directly toward the fuel pumps, the taxi line just sort of ... ends. And, so, having some markings indicating that you don't want to use this part as a throughway -- this is where aircraft park, and where a couple of business are trying to in and out their airplanes and cars and so on -- probably would help that a lot and prevent the kind of confusion that, like I said, actually led to an incident, an actual FAA-defined incident. So we'd love to, you know, help any way we can and wanted to suggest that as a possible solution to something that we've seen come up and just get more and more challenging as time has gone on. E Can I ask Phil to respond to this, because my understanding is that is an aircraft movement area. P It is -- E It has historically been P -- but I will say as we go forward there is a FAA, a new FAA desire ... it's a rule, but it's ... they now, due to runway incursions -- so you know something, something, some bad things happen in some places, so then they make a blanket change to things, and to us it's not necessary, necessarily a positive or logical thing, but it is something that they're going to make us deal with, especially if they give us money for some of these bigger projects down the road. So they no longer want to see direct access from an apron area out to the runway. So if you think about our two stub taxiways that go out kind of in front of the terminal, one's down kind of your direction and one's kind of down toward .. more in line with the terminal, so it comes from the ramp straight out, they don't want to see that any more. So as we're doing the ramp project and apron expansion and all that, what they want to see is that you have to leave the apron area, get on the parallel taxiway for a short, and then connect over. So you would almost take our stub taxiway, the one to the South, and slide it down enough that it's in the middle of the grass island so you have to make a jog. And then we have to do same thing with the other one. Once we start getting into that, and this apron expansion, we're gonna have to kind of redelineate circulation there because of that, so there are some things that are coming on the horizon that effectively have us dealing with that. That will all be shared, discussed, the Authority make a decision on it, and then that can be shared out. But that's in the coming months. It won't necessarily be in this apron expansion project, but there will be elements of that, strings attached to that money that we'll have to commit to for future projects that will happen, and when we do that, the way the circulation is now will change, and I think there's, there's, some of that -- E There will be even more circulation through the area. P -- it is, it will make us do things that we ... a little less efficient, at the point that we're less efficient and we have a new hangar we talked about and the apron expansion and all that, we'll probably do that so we kinda try to get some of that, especially transient stuff, to be more down, more to the North, more in the existing terminal and new terminal area, so that's all gonna come up, they're pushing that, and so we're gonna be kind of having to demonstrate our ideas on that to then get approval and share back and do all that anyway over the next six months. E But the fuel farm is gonna remain where it is. ? P It is. And there's some things that we talked about in the terminal committee about ... kind of the access in there as we can, that -- that will be helpful to that, that helps that situation some too, and makes it more intuitive, so some of the things where we'll re-mark and we do other things, we're going to be forced to do some stuff that we probably wouldn't have done intuitively, but as we're visiting that it gives us a chance to look at the circulation, and with the new terminal, the transient related at and what's parked out there in front of that, how that's going to come up [...] So effectively on that, you're gonna be, you're gonna be visiting that stuff whether we want to or not because of those new rules in the next few months, and so out of that it's a chance to globally kinda visit what, what works best for existing users, base customers, as well as intuitive for the transient folks so they don't get, wander off and get ... R I have a comment E Yes, please R Due to recent changes to jet traffic that's coming in on a every-two-week basis now, and if they bring the large jet we have to put them in a place that's not gonna hamper other things. So effective the end of this month there will be no tiedown in front of your hangar, and there will be no parking from there to the end of Ron Arnold's old hangar. You'll have to park on the grass or behind the hangar. It's gotta be clean so when I taxi a jet that way to put him on the end and turn and face him to the West -- er, East -- he can shut down and stay there. So I don't want any traffic, any pallets, any cars, any trucks, any equipment down through there so I can get a big jet down there for a reason without having to say "Hey, can you move your car?", "Hey, can you move your airplane?". So it's gonna be a flow area, and it has to stay clean. You wanna weigh in, Al? D That makes sense. A I was gonna say the same thing. We oughta just take all those, all those spaces out -- R Yep A -- and let him have whatever he wants because evidently Pickens County is willing to give him anything he wants, and y'all know it. D *chuckles* R We're going to take that one numbered spot up. ? A Yup. I'm just tired of ... We're almost getting to where the airport is a hostile environment, and I don't know who's going to control it? Is the Airport Authority gonna control it? I asked Randy today if he would control it? He said it wasn't his job to do it. R I'm gonna ... I said I was gonna bring it up to the Board -- A And you said it was not your job. R -- about how we were gonna handle it. A You said it was not your job. And I've got witnesses that say so. R I said I was gonna bring it up to the Board. A And I asked you. And I did ask you, and you said "No, I need to bring it to them." Because you're not going to do -- R <...> tonight to see, get their opinion on which way we wanna go with it. A Exactly! R OK. A He's been -- R Then let's wait for that to happen. A And ... And ... You wanna wait? I'll set here and wait for something to happen. R Outstanding E So, David, I'll make a comment on it. As an operator of a fairly large twin based at the airport, you take away my ability to taxi through there, it's near impossible for me to operate that airplane without the benefit of having somebody come tow me or walk to my hangar and get a golf cart and push it and pull around. That's an egress area that is access for the fuel pumps, and personally I don't think the problem existed until you had a tie-down in front of that hangar and you had all of your equipment out there. I'll be honest, I've operated at that airport for about ten years now, and didn't have a problem until your hangar and your operation was there. D Thank you for that input. I'm sorry to hear that. We should, I suppose, have never been assigned that tie-down, and I had no idea. So -- E I agree with that D -- We've been in space labeled number 38, thinking that we're within space labeled 38 and, so, yeah, if they need to go away, uh, ... R It is. We're taking all the cones, all the barrels, all the ropes up and painting over the number. D That makes sense, and I'll check later and see where I can park, and that'll be great. We're trying to exist within what we've been told, so thank you very much for the input, and, gosh, I wish we'd known earlier; we would have said -- R OK D -- "Paint it and get rid of it and put us across the way somewhere else" and that would be fine. I'm really glad -- E Remember, the airport is operated for the benefit of multiple aircraft owners, multiple business owners, not just yours, -- D Oh, absolutely. E -- and we've now come to a situation where it's come to a head, and it'll get addressed. R And we're fixin' to add 24 more aircraft into the other 24 T hangars, so the traffic for people that are not familiar with our airport needs to be A) clearly marked and designated, and we're going to have a good asphalt re-marking, and that will remain an open path for larger twins and other things that can't just move around or get between so that way if somebody's parking in training, back it up and put the tail on the grass or put in your hangar, back it up in there, and it'll be all right. That way it's out of the way. 'Cuz we never know, a lot of times, when a jet is gonna land or a King Air or whatever, and it's like "Oh, he's landing", so now we gotta figure out a place to put it. The new client from Miami that's coming in every two weeks and staying for two weeks, they have two jets; one is a smaller one, and one is very large, and the larger one we're gonna have to put down in that turnoff to leave it there so it's out of the way for construction and everything else that's goin' on. E Randy R Yes, sir? E If you're talking about the area there in front of the maintenance hangar, -- R Not the m-- no, not the maintenance hangar E -- 'cuz that area is compromised on the ramp itself. R Right E We're creating FOD over there already, that's a ramp upgrade area that we've had on the CIP already, -- R Yes E -- so just be careful if that's your operation area for that jet. R I'm going to put the smaller, the smaller one -- E We could have a problem R -- on that side and the big jet up in front of hangar A1. E That's fine A Is that gonna be near me? R No. No, we'll put the small-- We're gonna fill up all the tie-downs in between H1 through H7, fill those tie-downs up with the broke aircraft that rarely hardly ever move, and then we're gonna g-- clear a clear spot up on hangar A1 so we can put the bigger jets up there they can turn around without having to worry about smaller traffic. We're getting close to filling up our tie-downs. E We are. We're running out of space.