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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFlying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission - 01/11/2024APPROVED MINUTES FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 2024 7:00 P.M. CITY CENTER 8080 MITCHELL RD COMMISSION MEMBERS: Chair: Dan Dorson Vice Chair: Marc Morhack Commissioners: Bob Barker Vinod Pillai Nick Rogers Michael Lawrence (Business Representative) Rob Dockry (Airport Manager) COMMISSION STAFF: Scott Gerber, EP Fire Chief Kristin Harley, Recording Secretary MAC STAFF: Michele Ross Eric Gilles STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: Harshan Chandrasekar Jack Morrissette Leo Johnson Seth Johnson Bergen Papa Daniel Jian I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Dorson called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Commission member Barker and Pillai were absent. Student representatives Jack Morrissette and Leo Johnson were absent. Residents Warren Loken, Steve Clifton, Jeanne and Rick Palmer, J.D. and L.E Thomas, Sandra Loken, and other citizens joined the meeting. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Morhack moved, seconded by Rogers to approve the agenda. Motion carried 5-0. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES MOTION: Morhack moved, seconded by Rogers to approve the minutes of the October 12, 2023 minutes amended. Motion carried 5-0. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION January 11, 2024 Page 2 IV. PUBLIC CONERNS ON FLIGHT ACTIVITY RELATED TO FLIGHT SCHOOLS Gerber welcomed the members of the public and requested any speakers sign in. Trever Rossini, of Inflight Training, introduced himself and gave his background in aviation. Inflight started in 2013 with two planes, and now had 27. Covid-19 saw a huge increase in training time. His school did try to keep noise down. Pilot shortage at major airlines plus retirements contributed to the increase in training flights. 70 percent of the customer base were hobby flyers, rather than commercial pilots in training. Inflight also did FBO operations. In July it had acquired the Elliot Aviation Building which was the home base of operations for company travel. Inflight was gutting and rehabbing the facility. Elliot had been a maintenance operation only, on turban and light aircraft, and no piston-engine work. Elliot had a 10 year lease with Inflight. Inflight trained pilots from zero experience through advanced, and was one of four flight schools at Flying Cloud, the others being Thunderbird, ATP, and AV8. Rossini offered to answer questions. Warren Loken displayed a diagram of flights over his neighborhood and asked it to be addressed. He listed the schedule: 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday through Saturday. Rossini expressed sympathy and explained when Inflight started, it used the runway to the south that ran over the river valley. After the move to the north side, air traffic controllers did not want to direct flight traffic over the airport. Warren asked if pilots knew where other planes were in the sky. Rossini replied they did to some degree. High amounts of traffic were dangerous, especially without a control tower. Having a control tower maintained separation and safety. The challenge was that air traffic controllers wished to keep piston-engine craft on the north side to separate the traffic from larger aircraft using the south side runway. Training flights from UMD and Mankato contributed to more touch-and-goes, as a pilot in training needs to practice landings at a variety of airports. Warren asked if there was an opportunity to spread out the flights among other reliever airports. Rossini replied he had explored downtown St. Paul as an alternative, though this was corporate airspace, with no real base of operations. Anoka was a similar situation, with not enough real estate, which was often the case even at Flying Cloud. It was difficult to move to a different airport with the FAA requirements. Unfortunately, there was not enough space at reliever airports. Dorson stated there was a need to conform to specific requirements when using other airports, which were being utilized. Thunderbird often operated out of Crystal and held training at every MAC reliever airport. The commission has been looking at nighttime activity as well, and had spoken with instructors to minimize night training. He commended Rossini as a good listener and Inflight as a good neighbor. Rossini stated the updates to the building would be completed in July. The rehab was in two phases, with phase one wrapping up in three or four months, and phase two another three months. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION January 11, 2024 Page 3 Dorson stated the commission had come up with the top 10 things to improve at Flying Cloud in 2022 and a refreshed look of the big Elliot buildings was on the list. Rossini stated the new pylon sign would be installed in two weeks. A member of the public stated she had met with Ron Case regarding flight training at different airports, and piston traffic at other fields. Rossini replied one of the issues that made the issue challenging was to get quality training for students. They were often sent to other airports, such as Lakeville and Glencoe, and Inflight received complaints there too. One thing Inflight did was to ensure there was no pattern work during nighttime operations past 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. There could still be one-off pilots from other areas who conducted pattern work at night, making this a tricky question. Mayor Case had suggested flying these patterns higher and having the pilots pull back more, but standard flight safety and FAA regulations dictate these common pattern procedures. Warren Loken stated it seemed apparent the nighttime flights came from two or three of the three training schools. He found them to come every four minutes, appearing to be localized. Rossini replied one challenge was the pilot renting the plane was renting by the hour, which was not cheap at $300/hour, and the pilot in training had the right to use the airspace. Warren suggested the true cost of operating was not borne by flight schools but the residents in terms of noise and fuel pollution. Rogers asked for leading indicators of the “Covid bump.” Rossini replied Covid-19 saw a great increase in flights, but they were holding steady and he expected them to stay this way for the foreseeable future. InFlight’s fleet was at maximum, and would remain steady. A member of the public stated some communities had brought lawsuits and asked if other communities with similar complaints had come up with compromises. Rossini replied he had not heard of lawsuits, although Santa Monica had shut down its airport. Banning touch-and-goes was not feasible, due to flight training needs, loss of revenue and the cost of grounded planes; there would have to be some sort of compensation. Dorson asked about the potential for electric trainer airplanes in the future. Rossini stated modern planes ran on 1970s technology whereas the new jets were much quieter. Such technology was the future and schools would eventually migrate. He added airplanes had a life cycle like cars, and electric/battery-operated planes were more efficient and quieter. Warren noted these planes could be heavy. Rossini agreed there were limits, but electric/battery-operated planes currently had approximately an hour of run time. Dorson called on the student representatives to describe their experiences with the flight schools in Eden Prairie. Jiang observed that they had speakers at Eden Prairie High School that came from Flying Cloud Airport, including Jared from Thunderbird. Field trips gave the students’ biggest exposure to the airport. There were free training trial lessons, simulators and computers. He had taken a trip to Delta’s hangars, maintenance and engineering. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION January 11, 2024 Page 4 Papa stated he had the same experience as Jiang, although his class focused on the opportunities with drones and had not connected with Flying Cloud Airport as much. Jared, of Thunderbird Aviation, announced the Young Flyers Program, a 30-year program offering camp for eight-year-olds to fourteen-year-olds, with four camps every summer, which did try to reach out to the community and bring in youth. V. PUBLIC COMMENT a. None other than above VI. FOCUS TOPIC FOR THE MEETING a. Long Term Comprehensive Plan Update Eric Gilles reported on the long term comprehensive plan. He stated it did not authorize construction, but was a road map toward compliance to FAA standards which focused not on air traffic but everything on airport property. Its goal was to bring the airport up to standard by enhancing airport safety, preserving and if possible improving operational capabilities, and promote financial sustainability. The plan had a 2021 – 2024 timeline involving public engagement opportunities. It focused on a 20-year horizon and typically occurred every seven to ten years. There had been three public engagement sessions and four of stakeholder advisory meetings. The plan was looking at the runway environment: the runway design code (RDC) which was dictated by the type of aircraft (in this case, Beech Baron 58 (18-36), Beech Baron 58 (10L-28R) and Challenger 350 (10R-28L) in use. The RDC was comprised of three components: Aircraft approach category (AAC) or speed, Airplane design group (ADG) or wingspan, and Approach visibility minimums or runway specific criteria. There would be another open house in the first or second quarter of this year and another stakeholder advisory meeting as well. All runway ends and lengths would remain as they currently existed today. The Challenger 350 dictated increased safety measures around the existing runways, so Gilles displayed the engineering material resting systems (EMAS), a porous concrete which could stop aircraft, which allowed staff to bring runway safety areas into compliance. Dorson noted these were like a runaway truck ramp. Ross explained these safety features were mandated by FAA advisory circulators since the airport accepted federal grant assurances. Gilles added the plan did examine two other options that did not ultimately work for Flying Cloud Airport. Full runway safety compliance under these alternatives would have required the moving of Flying Cloud Drive and address sloping requirements. The airport optioned to include infill dirt. The results were that all impacts remained on airport property and did not affect exterior properties. The air traffic control tower cab would be relocated in 2027, allowing hangar development on the south side. There would also be FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION January 11, 2024 Page 5 hangar development on the north side over a 20-year time frame, enhancing visual acuity for aircraft blast pads. Jet blast and erosion control were other improvements, and helped pilots understand there were two parallel runways at the airport. The focus was on the runway environment. The goal was not to grow the operations but enhance operational activity and safety. Morhack asked what the need was for the additional hangars if no growth, and if this would result in diverting traffic from residential areas. Gilles replied itinerant aircraft, such as corporate aircraft, not based at Flying Cloud, did conduct operations at Flying Cloud Airport. They did not do work in the pattern, and used the hangars for storage. The general trend was a 4 percent growth at the lower end and 15 percent. Most itinerant aircraft don’t account for the uptick in activity. The air traffic control tower specifically tried to segregate the traffic on the north and south. Dorson asked for next steps with the plan Gilles replied there would be another round of public engagement with the draft, another meeting w4ith the stakeholder panel and then the Met Council would review the draft sometime in summer 2024. There would also be an environmental review or environmental assessment, which could take two or two-and- a-half years, and possibly a categorical exclusion which could take a few months, then another wave of stakeholder engagement, a revalidation with the FAA. The environmental assessment could change the plan when getting clearance. Design and construction would take a year each approximately four or five years in the future. The Air traffic control tower relocation was separate from the plan. VI. STANDING DISCUSSION ITEMS a. NOISE REPORT – MAC Lewis introduced herself and presented the noise report. She explained her role in responding to noise complaints from the residents and gave a recap of 2023. Metroairports.org was the website for interactive reports which have additional detail (metroairports.org/community-connection/aircraft-noise, click on-Interactive Reports). She explained how MAC owned seven airports but did not own or control the airspace. MAC monitored the airspace and provided flight tracking data 30 miles outward in all directions from the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. She provided a five-year overview (2019 – 2023). A peak in operations typically occurred over June, July, and August but in 2023 the peak occurred earlier, in May and June. She displayed and explained the air traffic control tower counts and defined an “operation” as any arrival or departure, wherein a touch-and-go counted as two operations. She explained the change in the MACNOMS metrics in July 2021 to be more representative of operations (because the tower counts do not include nighttime hours), and how comparisons before this was not an apples-to-apples comparison. This accounted for the apparently large jump in operations in July of 2021. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION January 11, 2024 Page 6 Nighttime operations occurred between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. At Flying Cloud Airport, 5 percent were nighttime operations, and 95 percent were daytime operations. Pilots often wait until 7:00 a.m. to conduct operations as a result of the noise abatement plan. The Flying Cloud Tower opens at 6:00 a.m. There was a federal requirement for nighttime operations to maintain pilot currency. This was a challenge when sunrise came earlier and sunset came later. In the summertime there would be aircraft operating during these “shoulder hours” (late night, early morning). The 9:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. hours showed the most operations hour-per-hour in 2022 and 2023. The types of aircraft used in 2023: 84 percent of operations were propeller aircraft, 5 percent turbo-prop, 8 percent jet, and helicopters were 2 percent, with the military having 6 operations, and the rest were unknown. Turbo-prop comprised 16 percent of nighttime operations in 2023, jets 13 percent, and propellers were the highest. She displayed the chart showing complaints and household trends 2019-2023, showing a peak level of complaints which came in 2020 (24,058). Since then, operations were on a downward trend and presently were at pre-Covid levels (5,047 in 2023). A peak level of households (118) registered complaints in 2021. Lewis stated the winter was mild in the fourth quarter of 2023. Overall complaints had seasonal trends, with increased flights during good weather. Some of this was lost in annual reports, but quarterly reports brought these out. The heat map showed aircraft concerns surrounding Flying Cloud Airport and the volume of complaints submitted in 2023 throughout Eden Prairie. Overall, in 2023 there was a 32 percent decrease in complaints and 13 percent decrease in household complaints. Eden Prairie residents resulted in4,800 complaints from 69 households, 22 of which were new in 2023. 74 percent of complaints came from four households. Residents on the east side of the airport represented the highest level of new complaints. The fourth quarter of 2023 saw an increase in complaints, much of it due to weather: 1,412 in 2023 compared to 828 in 2022, from 28 locations in 2023 and 28 locations in 2022. There were 128 nighttime complaints in 2023 from 20 households compared to 126 in 2022 from 17 households. Lewis stated a more typical winter would have resulted in fewer complaints for the last quarter of 2023. Frequency was a factor in addition to noise. Most complaints from residents she spoke with were spending time outside in November and December. A member of the public asked if outreach might result in more complaints, since residents would become aware they have a voice. Lewis acknowledged this point. Warren Loken asked how other reliever airports measure up with the statistics, with an eye toward balancing operations at Flying Cloud with other reliever airports. Lewis replied Flying Cloud had 35.7 percent operations in last quarter 2023 and 19.7 percent of complaints in that quarter among the six reliever airports. She offered the residents reach FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION January 11, 2024 Page 7 out to her for a broader comparison going back in time. Flying Cloud typically had more operations and more complaints than the other reliever airports. MAC did not have authority over how aircraft wished to use the airport because aircraft operations are regulated by the FAA, and different regulations apply depending on types of aircraft operations. MAC runs and maintains the airport but cannot impose restrictions. Dorson compared this to commuter automobile traffic in the morning. A member of the public asked what consideration was given to the community in authorizing flight schools, such as a noise impact study. Lewis replied if a business wanted to come to the airport, it would work with the MAC requirements but also federal regulations. She was unaware of any study or assessment done. The same member of the public asked if a noise ordinance could apply. Lewis replied she was not aware of any evaluation. Dockery added any change at the airport, such as a runway extension, would result in a noise study. Lewis stated in the long term planning process there was a noise evaluation, not tied to one individual business, but to the airport in general and its activity. Ross added there was a baseline noise contour plan, which gave a noise forecast from 2021 to 2040, and an environmental assessment would consider noise as well. b. ORDINANCE 97 MONITORING – MAC Dockry summarized the agreement to limit the use of Flying Cloud Airport to aircraft less than 60,000 pounds. Three other airports could be utilized for aircraft heavier than that limit. There were seven violations between four different aircraft owners, with two repeat offenders, in the fourth quarter of 2023. They received letters. This compared to nine violations in the third quarter of 2023. c. AIRPORT INCIDENTS AND OPERATIONAL UPDATES – MAC Dockry stated there was a woman suffering a mental health crisis who crawled underneath the fence ran up to a King Air that was taxiing. There were no injuries. She was charged with trespassing. d. LONG TERM COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE – MAC This was done earlier in the meeting. VII. OLD BUSINESS VIII. NEW BUSINESS Dorson asked the student representatives to suggest any agenda items, and added there might be a tour in April/May. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION January 11, 2024 Page 8 IX. UPCOMING EVENTS AND TOPICS FOR FUTURE FCAAC MEETINGS X. ADJOURNMENT The next FCAAC meeting will be held on Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in Heritage Room I. MOTION: Rogers moved, seconded by Morhack to adjourn. Motion carried 6-0. The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.