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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFlying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission - 01/11/2011 APPROVED MINUTES FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION THURSDAY,JANUARY 13, 2011 7:00 P.M. CITY CENTER Heritage Room I 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Rick King; Vice-Chair Jeff Larsen; Commissioners: Judy Gentry, Greg McKewan, Mark Michelson, Jeff Nawrocki and Kurt Schendel VISITORS: Beverly Cooper, Stephanie Burdof and James Young—Hummingbird Helicopters Jennifer Lewis, Dana Swanson and Chad Leqve - MAC STAFF: Scott Kipp, Senior Planner; Carol Pelzel, City Recorder I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair King called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)report on the August 12, 2009 fatal aircraft accident is to be added to XI. Other Business, A. Various FYI Items as well as a newspaper article on that accident which was distributed by Larsen. MOTION: Gentry moved, seconded by Michelson, to approve the agenda as modified. The motion carried, 7-0. III. PUBLIC COMMENT A. 2010 FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT OPERATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD — CHRIS COOPER, HUMMINGBIRD HELICOPTERS Nawrocki presented the 2010 Flying Cloud Airport Operator of the Year Award to Hummingbird Helicopters. Beverly Cooper, representing Chris Cooper, accepted the award on behalf of Hummingbird Helicopters. Nawrocki explained helicopter operations is a very sensitive issue in communities and Hummingbird has incorporated noise abatement techniques into their training programs. From a control and operator perspective they were instrumental in providing information on flight patterns and assisted MAC in reaching a Letter of Agreement with the FAA. Nawrocki also mentioned that Hummingbird has a map inside their office and when people call with an issue regarding helicopters they are able to talk to them about those issues and then place a mark on the map where the complaint FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES January 13, 2011 Page 2 came from. Operators and student pilots are then able to see where the complaints and concerns are by looking at that map and moving around that area. Hummingbird Helicopters is very responsive to residents' concerns. On behalf of Hummingbird Helicopters Cooper thanked the Commission and MAC for this award. She said the reason they are here this evening is because of their employees and without them this wouldn't have happened. She introduced Stephanie Burdof and James Young as two of Hummingbird's best employees. They both are helicopter instructors and proctors for the testing facility. IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. COMMISSION MEETING HELD THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2010 On Page 6, second paragraph, Larsen asked that the first sentence of that paragraph be corrected to read "Larsen pointed out over past years they have been undercounting ........". He said undercounting has been occurring more than just the past year. MOTION: Larsen moved, seconded by McKewan, to approve the November 4, 2010, minutes as amended. Motion carried, 6-0-1 with Michelson abstaining because of absence from that meeting. V. GUEST SPEAKERS VI. DISCUSSION ITEMS A. 2010 YEAR-END REPORT AND 2011 GOALS/WORK PLAN (FINAL DRAFT) King explained the Commission's goal this evening is to make sure everything Commission members want included in the year-end report is in the report. Once the report is complete it will be submitted to the City Manager and then passed through to the City Council so they will have it before the Commission's workshop with the Council at the beginning of March. Nawrocki said the picture taken this evening of the Operator of the Year will be included in the report. Charts will also be updated. The Commission reviewed the report making minor changes. Larsen questioned if they should include a random excerpt from one of the noise reports MAC provides the Commission showing the different columns appearing on the monthly reports as part of the correlation available now due to the Multilateration system. This information wasn't available with the prior system but they can now identify the correlation and aircraft IP. King said he would opt to not include this information since it would be small and not that descriptive,however,he is not against including it. King said as a report, maps are more illustrative than text. He FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES January 13, 2011 Page 3 suggested adding a sentence or two explaining with this information they can now correlate the plane type to the flight path. King said he reviewed all of the Commission's minutes and included items discussed at their meetings in the report and feels the report is pretty comprehensive. King asked Commission members to once again review the report and get any minor changes to Kipp by the end of the month. He also asked that a copy of the report be sent out to the Commission members without being redlined. Motion: Motion was made by Larsen, seconded by McKewan, to approve the 2010 Year-End Report and 2011 Goals/Work Plan be approved as amended and to follow the process for submittal as outlined above. All members voted aye and the motion carried, 7-0. B. MULTILATERATION PROJECT UPDATE Lewis presented an overview of the Multilateration system which is part of a system that MAC operates through their Aviation Noise office. MAC's noise and operations monitoring system (MACNOMS) component, flight track and noise monitoring internet data base and web servers internet applications were made publicly available and anyone with internet access can access the data. Lewis presented the MACNOMS data flow explaining it can provide interactive maps and reports and is a new flight tracker tool. She demonstrated the system on the internet showing how airplanes can be tracked by a specific date and time. Lewis explained there is a 15-minute delay in receiving information because the FAA requires a 10-minute delay for specific aircraft data and the additional 5-minutes is processing time. Gentry suggested they present a similar demo to the City Council at their workshop. King questioned the meaningfulness of demos and since the Council doesn't know what had been done before it may not be that meaningful to them. Kipp said they could provide the Council with an example of airplanes coming in and knowing exactly which airplane it was. King suggested the Commission think about what they would want to present to the Council regarding this information. McKewan said they would want to select a day when there are a number of flights coming into Flying Cloud and show what it means to Eden Prairie. King said they could prepare a demo selecting specific information. Larsen said this would also show the altitude of the airplanes for people saying certain flights are too low. Michelson said when Council Members receive telephone calls from their constituents regarding airplane noise they could refer them to this website. He also pointed out they have been talking about this project for a year and a half. King said if the Commission feels this is a worthwhile item to present to the Council he will take some time to develop a couple scenarios for the Commission's review. He could take the noise report presented this evening and pick a particular house and show the complaints made from a specific day and watch the activity on that particular day. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES January 13, 2011 Page 4 C. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING REGARDING CERTAIN DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AT FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT Kipp explained part of the negotiation between MAC and the City on the Flying Cloud ball fields was MAC asking about renegotiating the ability to develop non- aeronautical land uses that would help provide revenue to system budgets for reliever airports. The City and MAC entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) defining how they would go about this process and it basically pertains to non-aeronautical development. Kipp further explained there are eight development parcels on airport property MAC believes they have the authority to zone. Under the MOU, the City proposed the traditional site development approval process with the City taking on the authority to rezone and move forward with the public hearing process. A proposal will be made to the City Council to establish Airport Commercial and Airport Office Zoning Districts within the area guided as Airport. Kipp said if the Council adopts these districts; the City will initiate the public process to rezone each of the eight development sites. If the City rezones the parcels MAC agrees not to challenge the City's assertion of zoning authority. The City and MAC will cooperate on infrastructure improvements with MAC paying their fair share. VII. EDUCATIONAL ITEMS A. JOINT AIRPORT ZONING BOARD ORDINANCE King provided the Commission with an update on the Joint Airport Zoning Board (JAZB) explaining in order for the JAZB proposed ordinance to be processed there needed to be agreement between MAC, Eden Prairie, and three other contiguous cities with regard to the zoning at Flying Cloud Airport. The JAZB ordinance has to do with restrictions on the development in the airport areas that is not controlled by the FAA and deals mainly with height restrictions in Zones C and B. King explained the process for submitting the proposed ordinance stating it will be submitted to the Commissioner of Transportation and eventually a public hearing will be held. Once it is finally approved each city touched by Flying Cloud Airport will adopt the ordinance at the local level. Michelson asked how long this whole process would take. King said he anticipates it will be completed sometime this year. B. FINAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN CITY AND MAC NOISE COMPLAINTS/STAGE 2 OPERATIONS REPORT (OCTOBER- NOVEMBER) Swanson distributed the noise complaints for October—November, 2010, explaining December was listed on a separate report because they don't have flight track information for the complete month of December. Swanson reported for October and November there were 40 complainants with 571 complaints received compared to 547 for that same timeframe in 2009. They were able to correlate 109 arrivals to Flying Cloud and 186 departures and 57 touch and goes. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES January 13, 2011 Page 5 There were no helicopter flights for this time period and 9,657 total flight operations. There were 352 operations that generated one or more complaints. The Commission did a review of specific complaints on the Multilateration system. King pointed out when reviewing the complaints on the system it does not mean the airplane noise doesn't bother the resident. He said as this Commission reviews airport noise this year they will have more data to explain what is happening. He questioned how they can get more accurate information from the citizens and feels this is something the Commission should focus on this year. Swanson further reported in October there were 39 violation letters sent out with three operators receiving eight letters each. Beginning November 1 MAC used a new operator letter process sending only one letter per operator each month and in November sent out 11 letters to 11 operators. Michelson said it will be interesting to see in a couple of months if the new letter format changes the distribution pattern with the operators. C. REVISED MAC NOISE LETTERS TO FCM AIRCRAFT OPERATORS King asked if there have been any issues with the revised MAC noise letter. Swanson said they did receive two responses from a November recipient describing what their operations were. Larsen asked if there is a way of knowing what the 25 percent of operations that did not generate complaints did differently than the 75 percent that did generate complaints. He said they may be doing something this Commission has not considered and he suggested they look at this to see if there is something else they can do. Swanson said this is something they can take a look at. Kipp reminded the Commission that Hennepin Village was built to meet FAA noise reduction standards. Lewis said they know there are operators that will not receive letters because they have preapproval for the operation or if they had an operation between 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. that was an arrival and they followed the abatement procedure. They will look closer to see if the 25 percent fall into that category. D. FLIGHT TRACKER VERSION 1.0 DEMONSTRATION This item was discussed under Item VLB. Multilateraion Project Update. VIII. NOISE ABATEMENT/AIRCRAFT INCIDENTS IX. OTHER BUSINESS FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES January 13, 2011 Page 6 A. VARIOUS FYI ITEMS 1. Approved FCAAC Minutes of September 2, 2010 2. 2011 FCAAC Meeting Schedule 3. 2011 FCAAC Meeting Topics—v2 4. Neuharth Noise Concern and MAC Response 5. FAA/MAC Letter of Agreement—Helicopter operations at FCM 6. Cover memo to City Manager on Changes to Noise Complaint Letter 7. Cover memo to City Manager on Residential Sound Level Testing Report 8. City Council Workshop/2010 Year-End Review and Work Plan— March 1, 2011 9. NTSB Report and newspaper article on the August, 2009 Airplane crash 10. Next Commission meeting—March 10, 2011 As requested by Commission members, Nawrocki distributed copies of the Security Guide for Flying Cloud Airport. In response to a question from Larsen, Nawrocki explained the FAA/MAC Letter of Agreement for Helicopter operations at Flying Cloud was to identify a pattern for helicopters for training purposes that did not conflict with day-to-day operations. This designates where they will practice depending on winds, use of runway and traffic. X. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Motion was made by Gentry, seconded by McKewan, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried, 7-0. The meeting adjourned at 9:25 p.m.