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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFlying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission - 10/13/2022APPROVED MINUTES FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2022 7:00 P.M. CITY CENTER 8080 MITCHELL RD COMMISSION MEMBERS: Chair: Dan Dorson Vice Chair: Andy Kleinfehn Commissioners: Bob Barker Chilkunda Narendranath Marc Morhack Michael Lawrence (Business Representative) Blaine Peterson (Airport Manager) COMMISSION STAFF: Scott Gerber, EP Fire Chief Kristin Harley, Recording Secretary MAC STAFF: Jennifer Lewis STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: Aadit Bhavsar Luke Brown Julie Fang Aditya Kshirsagar Landon McDowell Darren Tanubrata Anirudh Vadrevu I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Dorson called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Absent was commission member Gerber. Rik Berkbigler joined the meeting. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Morhack moved, seconded by Lawrence to approve the agenda. Motion carried 7-0. I. APPROVAL OF MINUTES MOTION: Lawrence moved, seconded by Lawrence to approve the minutes of the July 14, 2022 meeting. Motion carried 7-0. II. PUBLIC COMMENTS FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION October 13, 2022 Page 2 Dorson welcomed the student commission members, who then introduced themselves. Each existing commission member introduced themselves. Dorson summarized the charge of the commission for the student members. Kurt Lawton of the Citizens of Oak Park Association stated he had retrieved data from Flight Tracker between the hours of 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. There were 232 departures in the third quarter of 2022 and 32 so far in October. He noted the altitudes of flights near his home ranged from 530 to 1,500 feet and the speeds from 125 to 266 miles per hour. He cited specific flights that were mere hundreds of feet over his house and touch-and- goes that he found disturbing between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. He stated he had been told it was impossible for jets to follow the green space such as Riley Creek but had seen some flights do so. He wished to bring this data forward as a resident who supported commerce but wanted to see improvement in the mitigation of noise during nighttime flights. He wished to hear more about long-range planning. Dorson thanked him and stated his comments would be distributed. There would be another long-range planning meeting on October 25. III. FOCUS TOPIC FOR THE MEETING a. EDEN PRAIRIE AND THE SURRONDING AIRSPACE Josh Ronken, operations manager at Minneapolis TRACON, displayed a PowerPoint and introduced Ross Gammel of the FAA. Ronken explained their outreach work to improve safety operations included southern Minnesota, Lake Elmo, and Buffalo. TRACON meant the approach control outside the tower on the northwest side of the airport and involving a 40-mile radius surrounding the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. He pointed out the tower and Terminals 1 and 2. Traffic at Flying Cloud also fell under their prevue. The various runways at various local airports drove the airspace. Gammel stated the tower count operation was approximately 179/day and there were 24 runways, 12 left and 12 right. Ronken explained the different runway configurations. Heights ranged from ground level to 17,000 feet. MSP supported 334,000 flights, which made Flying Cloud the third-largest operation at over 100,000/year. Ronken explained there were three satellite sectors that could be opened up for departures and arrivals during special events. Flying Cloud had its own satellite center. There was an operations supervisor and an operations manager who oversaw airplane traffic along with the traffic management center. The airspace boundary was Richmond/Osceola to the northeast, Faribault to the south, Princeton to the north, and Buffalo to the northwest. There was an average of 33,500 arrivals/day. Gammel displayed the flight routes into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. A north route out of Flying Cloud Airport was not the best option due to the traffic routes. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION October 13, 2022 Page 3 The satellite towers monitored arrivals and departures at the satellite sectors, mostly turboprops and turbojets due to traffic routes at lower altitudes. Gammel displayed the flight routes into Flying Cloud Airport and the departure routes out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Ronken explained the dispersal area. Part of their outreach was to discourage aircraft from flying directly over the Twin Cities. A huge responsibility was to monitor traffic operating systems, also to support National Security and Homeland Defense Systems, and issuing safety alerts, weather reports, and traffic advisories. They also provided Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) and Visual Flight Rules (VFR) services. Dorson explained commercial airliners and business jets used IFR, whereas training flights used VFR in general, and communication with the tower was then optional. Gammel noted that Flying Cloud’s operations had skyrocketed during the pandemic. Total traffic operations per day were 245 operations/day between 2013 and 2019, whereas in 2020 it jumped to 350 operations/day. Pattern traffic went from 97 touch-and-goes/day to 164 in three years. There were huge increases overall in numbers between 2020-2022. Discussion followed on these numbers. Ronken stated hotspots were high areas of traffic concentration that the air traffic controllers had to pay particular attention to. Gammel explained the process of guiding aircraft in these areas for both IFR and VFR departures, which had recently changed due to the higher traffic levels. The workload had increased, leading to higher traffic calls, some rerouting and heightened caution on the part of MAC staff. Gammel displayed animated time-lapses of arrivals and departures at MSP on a Saturday night and explained how these could affect traffic at Flying Cloud Airport. The approach controllers had priority over the departures and other flight routes being monitored. Ronken displayed an animated time-lapse of a 24-hour period of aircraft in the National Airspace System around the world. There was a brief Q&A session. Gammel explained his role was to open a line of communication to pilots. Ronken could not give specific advice on noise mitigation, but a new Letter of Agreement would enforce altitude for training flights, which would increase safety and efficiency and would also affect noise, raising the flights 300.00 feet higher as they turn, to an altitude of 2,500.00 feet. There were 56 controllers managing 42 lines, but there were no delays in releases despite the tower being short-staffed. Dorson thanked the presenters. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION October 13, 2022 Page 4 VI. STANDING DISCUSSION ITEMS a. NOISE REPORT – MAC Lewis stated Flying Cloud Airport accounted for the majority of the noise complaints for the reliever airport system. Anoka Airport came in second at 11 percent. Flying Cloud Airport also had the highest level of operations in the reliever airport system, at 36.5 percent, whereas Anoka had 17.9 percent. In the third quarter of 2022 there were 2,673 complaints from 51 households, 370 of which were nighttime complaints from 29 households. This was a 45 percent and 43 percent decrease respectively from the third quarter of 2021. Of the 10 new households submitting complaints in the third quarter of 2022, 8 were Eden Prairie households. The aircraft types associated with the complaints were the piston engine aircraft (at 51 percent of the complaints), jet aircraft (31.4 percent), and turboprop aircraft (14.7 percent). Updates on complaints had been discussed in these meetings, and Lewis would have this in the future. The reduction in 2022 was in part due to a reduction in the complaints from repeat households. Lewis did not know the reason why one household had stopped submitting complaints altogether. There was also a slight decrease in the numbers of operations. She speculated that there were more complaints in 2020 due to people working from home and not being used to hearing activity, which had changed in 2022. Letters were still being sent to operators who violated the voluntary nighttime flight agreement, and approximately 100 letters had been sent in this quarter. The average was approximately 30 letters sent per month. Early morning and repetitive noise, especially in summer, were the two most common areas of focus in her conversations with operators. All operators were very responsive to receiving the letters, and most also shared information about why they were operating at those times and what they could and could not do to alleviate the situation. Dorson reiterated the process: a nighttime complaint is received, it is correlated with an operator, and a letter is sent out as a reminder for voluntary compliance. He asked if somehow this complaint response could be shown on the website (without household names attached). Lewis replied that kind of response would require a tool and a budget. Lewis was still in discussions about what was needed to provide that type of service, which would provide a consistent functionality across the reliever airport system. There were privacy issues to work through as well. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION October 13, 2022 Page 5 Lawton asked for clarification for why 100 letters were sent for 3,000 complaints. Lewis explained that some letters cover more than one complaint. Morhack noted some flights were waived and some were medical transports as well, and some were unidentified. b. ORDINANCE 97 MONITORING – MAC Peterson stated there were 14 events in the third quarter of 2022 (seven takeoffs and seven landings). One involved an operator taking off and landing on two consecutive days. c. AIRPORT INCIDENTS AND OPERATIONAL UPDATES – MAC Peterson stated one excursion aircraft that veered off the runway and hit a light, damaging the aircraft. This was under FAA investigation. In another incident a tug nose was over the short line, and this was resolved. There were 38,334 operations in this quarter, as opposed to 40,643 operations in the third quarter of 2021. d. LONG TERM COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE – MAC Peterson stated the open house for the community was held on June 6. The next would be held October 25 from 4:30 – 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of Hennepin Technical College. There would be a more comprehensive update in January. VII. OLD BUSINESS Peterson stated the Air Expo on July 23 and 24 was well attended, although thunderstorms interrupted the event on the 23rd. There were approximately 9,000 attendees. The Girls in Aviation event on September 24 had been very successful at 1,931 attendees, 40 vendors and $38,000.00 raised. 200 people attended the Tenant Appreciation Barbeque on August 10. VIII. NEW BUSINESS IX. UPCOMING EVENTS AND TOPICS FOR FUTURE FCAAC MEETINGS  Long Term Comprehensive Plan meeting, October 25 from 4:30 – 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium of Hennepin Technical College FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION October 13, 2022 Page 6 X. ADJOURNMENT The next FCAAC meeting will be held on Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. in Heritage Room I. MOTION: Morhack moved, seconded by Lawrence to adjourn. Motion carried 7-0. The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.