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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFlying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission - 11/10/2011 APPROVED MINUTES FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 7:00 P.M. CITY CENTER Heritage Room 1 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Jeff Larsen; Vice-Chair Mark Michelson; Commissioners: Caryl Hansen, John Pratten, Keith Tschohl, Jeff Nawrocki and Kurt Schendel VISITORS: Jennifer Lewis, MAC Representative; Mary Blake, Flying Cloud Air Traffic Control Manager STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: John Bowman and Kevin Gadel STAFF: Scott Kipp, Senior Planner; Carol Pelzel, City Recorder I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Larsen called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. II. APPROVAL AGENDA MOTION: Michelson moved, seconded by Tschohl, to approve the agenda as presented. Motion carried 7-0. Nawrocki explained the Noise Abatement Plan the Commission received for Flying Cloud Airport was an older version with edits from January 19, 2010. The more current version from July 23, 2010 includes the new run up location. Jennifer Lewis from MAC distributed to the Commission the July 23, 2010 version of the Plan. III. PUBLIC COMMENT Larsen explained the purpose for the public comment period is to allow people in the audience the opportunity to address the Commission with any issues and/or concerns they may have regarding Flying Cloud Airport. No one from the audience appeared during the public comment period. IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. COMMISSION MEETING HELD THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2011 Hansen said the third sentence of the second paragraph under VL A. does not make sense. She said the flights cannot be south of the east/west runway. The Commission FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 10, 2011 Page 2 agreed to change that portion of the paragraph to read"These flights are actually north of the east/west runway. They are over Staring and McCoy Lakes. She indicated she has logged over 1,600 helicopter complaints for flights that are north of the designated pattern area." MOTION: Michelson moved, seconded by Hansen, to approve the September 8, 2011 Commission meeting minutes as corrected. Motion carried 7-0. V. GUEST SPEAKERS A. AIRCRAFT NOISE CONCERNS FROM RESIDENTS' PERSPECTIVE— CONTINUED DISCUSSION—NOISE ABATEMENT Larsen explained representatives from MAC indicated they would report back with ideas concerning helicopter operations as discussed at the Commission's last meeting. Lewis reported MAC representatives had discussions with the helicopter operator and the control tower also talked to them to make sure they understood what the issues are. They asked the helicopter operator for their cooperation to alleviate concerns about the frequency of operation and the amount of operation. Lewis said they shared the complaint information and flight information with the operator and the operator agreed to spread out their operation as much as they can. They hope to complete their training by the end of this year. Lewis further reported there are a number of complaints in the most recent noise complaint report showing there is still concern expressed by members of the community. The report also shows there is a change in where the helicopter is operating. The operator is aware of the designated areas for helicopter training and they have tried to tighten up their pattern to fly over the designated boundary as much as possible. Lewis said the Control Tower has also been working with the helicopter operator. There has been some improvement as to where the helicopter is operating but new complaints have shown up in September and October. The Control Tower is trying to keep them to the south as much as possible. Larsen said there have been helicopter operations at the airport in prior years. People are trying to get nighttime operations in for training and in the past they moved some of those operations to other locations. It seemed at that time they did not have as many flights trying to get their nighttime certification. They have now been told these operators have moved their operations to other areas and Flying Cloud is not getting the full brunt but is still getting a tremendous number of operation complaints. He asked if they know why this is happening. Nawrocki explained these pilots are attempting to get their rating in a six-month period and generally this is not done in that short amount of time. Nawrocki further explained an individual needs 40 hours of training or until they are comfortable. Both individuals at Flying Cloud have exceeded 40 hours and it is at their discretion when they want to take the test for their license. They are located very close to the airport and to use another airport would be costly for these individuals. The convenience of the airport is their main reason for using Flying Cloud. Nawrocki said the helicopter operators have been very cooperative. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 10, 2011 Page 3 Larsen said at the Commission's last meeting they had received a report with the Letter of Agreement and a map showing the layout of the airport and the location of the helicopter practice areas. He questioned what that information represents. Nawrocki responded it represents helicopter training for hovering or uneven ground areas and are isolated for that type of operation. This is part of the helicopter training requirement. Tschohl said in looking at the patterns there is no designated pattern in the Letter of Agreement for southerly winds. With the number of patterns that have been flown and with complaints received from residents east of the airport this is something they may want to consider. Nawrocki said this is something they can revisit. Blake explained the southern pattern is based on the taxiway and it may or may not be available for use. With the increase in jet traffic it is not always feasible to use. She further explained the helicopter operators have been very cooperative when they have talked to them about the noise issue. Larsen pointed out MAC has always been very good about responding to their concerns and he thanked them for the work they did on this issue. The operator involved did do a certain amount of changing of their flight path to try to have some impact on reducing the noise. Larsen said he would like to monitor this helicopter operation for the next meeting also. As it gets closer to this training being completed they can look at where new flights are going. Larsen said Tschohl had provided him with a copy of a handout from the Inflight Pilot Training Seminar at Flying Cloud Airport on Noise Abatement and he distributed copies of that handout to the Commission. The handout includes concerns or items relayed to the pilots regarding noise abatement. It also includes a depiction of the airport and what the different plans are in terms of flights in noise sensitive areas. Larsen asked Lewis if she is aware of any e-mails MAC may have received from residents who attended last month's meeting to express concern over the helicopter noise at Flying Cloud. Lewis responded she was not aware of any calls or contacts. VI. DISCUSSION ITEMS VII. EDUCATIONAL ITEMS A. EFFORTS TO PROVIDE NOISE ABATEMENT INFO TO THIRD PARTIES Larsen explained this Commission wants to try to reduce noise at the airport however they can and they need to make sure itinerant or transient traffic is aware of the voluntary noise restriction. He said he thought it would be a good idea that they as an agency or entity provide information that can be distributed to cut down on the number of people who fly into Flying Cloud without knowing that the voluntary noise abatement exists. Tschohl has suggested a couple agencies that this information FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 10, 2011 Page 4 should be provided to and Nawrocki will contact these agencies to see what information they can provide them. Nawrocki explained Tschohl provided him with a handful of groups including the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. All of the groups are willing to work with MAC as far as inputting information and requested they be provided with general information to work into their documentation. They need to decide what information to provide these organizations and Nawrocki said he would be happy to work with Tschohl in developing the information to be provided so that it is consistent. Michelson asked that the Commission have an opportunity to review the information prepared prior to it being distributed to the different groups. Nawrocki said that most of the groups won't start the process for developing their directories until 2012 and he will bring the information they develop to the Commission at their next meeting. Tschohl said the information could tell the pilots noise abatement procedures exist and provide them with the basics of it and where additional information can be found. B. CONTINUATION OF PRESENTATION ON NOISE RELATED TOPICS Larsen asked if Tschohl wanted to provide the Commission with any additional information from his presentation on noise related topics. Tschohl said it is good information but not critical for this meeting. VIII. FINAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN CITY AND MAC A. HELICOPTER NOISE UPDATE Larsen explained this item had been discussed earlier in the evening under Item V.A. B. NOISE COMPLAINTS/STAGE 2 OPERATIONS REPORT (SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER) Lewis presented a report on the noise complaints for the months of September and October. The complaints were 684 percent higher than for the same time last year. There were 4,496 complaints for the two-month period with 2,200 complaints in September and 2,296 in October. There were 67 complainants for the two-month period. Lewis explained there were 97 pages of complaints from one person driving the higher level of complaints. There were 3,742 complaints submitted by this one individual who did not provide them with any contact information. That person started complaining in September and did not appear in MAC's data base prior to that date. The individual filed 657 run-up complaints and they were unable to correlate those complaints to any actual run-ups. Lewis further explained the top two complainants generated 85 percent of the complaints with the top 20 people generating 98 percent of the complaints. The total number of complaints was driven by relatively few people. There were 1,607 complaints correlated to helicopter operations and 1,427 duplicate complaints. They were unable to correlate 803 complaints to any type of operation. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 10, 2011 Page 5 Hansen said with regard to duplicate flights, on September 26 she kept track of flights that were two or three minutes apart and at 6:14 a.m. there was a jet that had gone over and at 6:17 a.m. there was a prop jet that had flown over. These flights show up on MAC's report as duplicate flights. She said it appears that anything two or three minutes apart show up as duplicate flights. Lewis said they would look into this further. There may be multiple operations but there may be flights that are unknown and they cannot be tagged so the only flight they could identify was listed. They look at the time of operation over the location and try to match it up with that time. She said this is something they will definitely look into. Lewis reviewed the various maps showing the locations where noise complaints were filed and those flight tracts correlated to complaints. Larsen said at the Commission's last meeting Leqve indicated MAC was redesigning their website and they were planning to roll it out November 17. He asked for an update on that project. Lewis said they are very excited to introduce their new noise website to the community. It is in place but not available to the public at this time. They are definitely on schedule to release it on November 17. Lewis said they would be happy to present a demonstration of the website to the Commission at their January meeting. Larsen asked if MAC has discussed how they are going to respond to all of the complaints received for the September/October timeframe. He said it would be a tremendous amount of work but he wants everyone to realize noise complaints are important to this Commission. Larsen said he is concerned about the amount of work on the part of MAC to take care of the complaints filed by the one resident. Lewis said they do not know who the individual is that filed all of the complaints. They do know there is an individual filing the complaints via the website,however, they have no contact information. There is no way for them to contact this person even if they wanted to. Lewis said they do have the individual's address but they do not want to go there uninvited. Pratten asked if it would be appropriate to put a noise monitor a short distance from this location to correlate the data. He suggested they measure the noise for a two-week period. Lewis said she would take this suggestion back to MAC and ask if this is something they can do. Larsen suggested at the Commission's next meeting they look at the noise report from now until then to see if they have similar complaints. Pratten said they may also want to check the property owner's information to see if that person is a new resident. IX. NOISE ABATEMENT/AIRCRAFT INCIDENTS A. NOISE ABATEMENT AT FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT X. NEW BUSINESS A. PLAN FOR 2011 YEAR-END REPORT AND 2012 GOALS FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 10, 2011 Page 6 Larsen said the Commission's 2010 year-end report and 2011 goals and work plan were distributed to the Commission. He asked Commission members to review these documents and to be prepared to discuss this information at their January meeting for inclusion in their 2011 year-end report to be presented to the City Council in March. Kipp said he would verify the date the Commission will be meeting with the City Council. B. WEBSITE EVALUATION REPORT Larsen explained the Commission has a website and a former Commission member, Greg McKewan, and City staff prepared an analysis of that website showing which pages on the site are most often looked at. Larsen asked for a volunteer from the Commission to run this report and to update the site after the first of the year. The information gathered would be from January 1 to December 31. Pratten said he would be willing to work with City staff to develop a similar report. XI. OTHER BUSINESS A. VARIOUS FYI ITEMS 1. Approved Airport Tour Notes,July, 2011 2. Approved FCAAC Minutes of July, 2011 3. FBI and Homeland Security Threats to General Aviation 4. MN DNR Aerial Mapping Project 5. Meeting Schedule for 2012 6. Next Commission Meeting—January 12, 2012 Michelson asked what the MN DNR aerial mapping project was. Lewis explained this is a project of the Department of Natural Resources to do 3D mapping. They are starting at the eastern edge of the metro area and are flying very specific lines and will cover different sections of the area moving westward. They expect the entire project to take three weeks. Larsen indicated the Commission's 2012 meeting schedule was included in the Commission's agenda material. Kipp will notify the Commission members of when their workshop with the City Council will be held. Michelson thanked MAC for all of the work they did with the helicopter complaints. It appears their work was successful in getting some good results and in tightening up the designated areas. XII. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Motion was made by Tschohl, seconded by Michelson, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried, 7-0. The meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m.