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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFlying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission - 07/14/2016 APPROVED MINUTES FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION THURSDAY,JULY 14, 2016 7:00 P.M., CITY CENTER HERITAGE ROOM I 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair, Keith Tschohl; Vice-Chair, Caryl Hansen; Bob Barker; Dan Kiely; Joseph Sutila; Mike Wilson COMMISSION MEMBERS ABSENT: Kurt Schendel STAFF: George Esbensen, Fire Chief;Jan Curielli, City Recorder VISITORS: Dana Nelson, MAC Representative; Chad Leqve, MAC Director, Environment; Gary Schmidt, MAC Director, Reliever Airports; Robert Dockery, MAC Intern; Rick King, MAC Commissioner; Brian Ryks, MAC Executive Director I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Chair Tschohl called the meeting to order at 7:01 PM. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Sutila moved, seconded by Barker, to approve the agenda as published. Motion carried 6-0. III. PUBLIC COMMENT None. IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. COMMISSION MEETING HELD THURSDAY,APRIL 14, 2016 MOTION: Sutila moved, seconded by Hansen, to approve the minutes of the April 14, 2016, meeting as published. Motion carried 6-0. V. METROPOLITAN AIRORTS COMMISSION PRESENTATION A. WELCOME—MAC CHAIR BOIVIN & COMMISSIONER RICK KING FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES July 14, 2016 Page 2 B. INTRODUCTION OF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN RYKS Commissioner King noted Chair Boivin was not able to attend tonight's meeting. He said the MAC performed a national search for the position of Executive Director. He introduced MAC Executive Director Brian Ryks. Executive Director Ryks said his 30 years in the aviation industry has included a history of working collaboratively with many communities. He started his career at the MAC noise department, so he understands that issue very well and is very familiar with Minnesota aviation. He also described his work at the Denver airport which included installing noise monitoring system at the new airport there. C. PRESENTATION Commissioner King thanked the FCAAC and Chair Tschohl for their presentation and discussion at the May 16, 2016, MAC general meeting and noted the presentation was well received. Mr. King said the MAC is in the process of completing Long Term Comprehensive Plans (LTCP) for reliever airports that will include developing a road map for future investments. He did not expect the LTCP to involve any major changes at Flying Cloud airport and does expect activities to continue at the current site. He said they are awaiting an answer to the question of getting a new tower here at Flying Cloud,but that is up to the FAA. In the meantime, they are in the process of getting new equipment to replace older items and will now need additional space to store the equipment. Wilson noted they are working on the 2017 budget to include plans for the garage space needed for the equipment. Mr. King said a new financial revenue model will help to fund projects outside of the MSP airport. The reliever airports will be able to become more self-sufficient as a result of that model. He said there are six parcels of land on airport property that are available for development, and development of that property is being done in collaboration with the City of Eden Prairie. He noted the activity of the local Joint Airport Zoning Board (JAZB) stopped around 2008, after issues arose regarding the safety zones around the airport and at the ends of the runways. There was a court case pending involving Flying Cloud Airport and the JAZB that suspended those activities, and the disposition of that case is not known at this time. Mr. King referred to the document in the Commission's meeting packet regarding the FAA revised final policy regarding non-aeronautical use of airport hangars. He said the final policy allows airport sponsors to seek prior blanket approval from the sponsor's local FAA Office of Airports for month-to-month non- aeronautical leases where there is no aeronautical demand for hangars. In addition, the final policy clarifies that the FAA considers construction of amateur- built and kit-built aircraft to be an aeronautical use of hangar space. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES July 14, 2016 Page 3 Mr. King said the FAA recently released new rules regarding non-hobbyist small unmanned aircraft(UAS) operations. He noted the handout with information from the website providing information and responsibilities regarding the use of UAS. Mr. Schmidt commented the new rules are pretty close to what was originally proposed, and UAS operations within five miles of an airport must notify the airport of the activity. He said the MAC created the website to let people know the requirements for registration and certification as a commercial operation. He noted there have been some minor issues with UAS at Flying Cloud. Wilson said a helicopter spotted some activity last year. D. Q & A Tschohl asked about the LTCP and what effect that might have on Flying Cloud Airport. Leqve said they are looking at getting into the environmental aspects beginning next year at St. Paul and Crystal. Flying Cloud and St. Paul would be next. Changes at LVN would involve realignment of Cedar Avenue, so they are looking at other options. Wilson reviewed the constraints at Air Lake and Flying Cloud. VI. DISCUSSION ITEMS A. NOISE REPORT/STAGE 2 OPERATIONS UPDATES—MAC i. Updates from MAC Staff on Recent Resident Noise Complaints Dana Nelson, MAC representative,reviewed the noise complaint reports for April and May, 2016. She said the report for June is not ready because they recently updated the system for entering noise complaints into the website. Complainants must now create an account that will include their home address. The change was made to introduce more integrity into the data set. The update has caused a lot of changes to their back end reporting process. She said she will email the June report to Commission members when it is complete and will also address it at the next meeting. Ms Nelson reviewed the April and May statistics. She said there were 328 total complaints in April, which was a decrease from the 422 complaints received in April 2015. Aircraft operations were down from April 2015; however, helicopter operations increased in April and May. As a comparison, she said in April Anoka had 209 complaints, St. Paul had 76 and MSP had over 10,000. Eight letters were sent out to operators in April. She said there were 223 total complaints in May, which was quite a bit lower than in May 2015. There were 64 complaints about helicopter operations in May, as compared to zero in May of 2015. In May, eleven letters were sent out to operators. She said their preliminary analysis for June shows quite a decrease in the number of complaints over June of 2015. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES July 14, 2016 Page 4 Tschohl asked if there is any reason for the decrease in complaints this year. Ms Nelson said they did not notice any drastic change in the households complaining, and it is consistent that each month about 80- 90% of the total comes from the same households. Barker asked if the same households that complain over the months and years is consistent. Ms Nelson said it is consistent as far back as last year. Tschohl noted a couple of months ago Ms Lewis was having discussion with a resident regarding MSP flights. He asked if there have been any changes in complaints regarding MSP flights. Ms Nelson said there has not been a drastic change in air traffic over Eden Prairie in and out of MSP, and she was not aware of any recent concerns from Eden Prairie regarding MSP operations. Barker asked if they expect the results of the new system to skew the data or if it might result in reducing potential complaints. Ms Nelson said this wasn't an issue specific to reliever airports but was more about MSP complaints. They wanted to make sure they were reporting the data in a way that was useful. She said they anticipate the same number of complaints for MSP,but expect a reduction in the number of households complaining. Leqve asked about any further discussions with Mr. Thompson. Ms Nelson said there was an update at the last meeting about concerns expressed by Mr. Thompson about arrivals and departures. The last they heard from him it seemed to be better, especially for the nighttime flights. They committed to an on-going dialogue with operators about the procedures at Flying Cloud. She said their department plan for the next three years includes evaluating the noise abatement procedures here to see if the right procedure is being used. They will work closely with the Commission on this plan, will develop some recommendations, and will then bring that back to the Commission. Tschohl asked if it will involve a voluntary procedure. Ms Nelson said the procedure would be voluntary. Kiely asked if there is any investigation to determine if the complaints come primarily about low-flying flights. Ms Nelson said they do have a procedure to look at that data. If they have specific concerns about a flight, they look into flight tracking data to see at what altitude the specific flight was operating. Kiely asked if that information would be part of the letters sent to operators. Ms Nelson said that would be included in the letter if a noise complaint was submitted about a night flight, if the flight and operator can be identified, and if the flight doesn't follow any of our noise abatement procedures. Hansen commented about a recent flight over her home last evening that was extremely low. Nelson said they offer a flight tracker procedure on the website that shows the altitude, the aircraft type, and the flight path. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES July 14, 2016 Page 5 ii. Ordinance 97 Education and Enforcement Overview iii. Ryder Cup Operations Tschohl asked for a discussion about procedures for handling the out-of- state visitors for the Ryder Cup to be held in late September/early October at Hazeltine National Golf Club. Wilson distributed copies of a map of Flying Cloud Airport with the locations allocated to the four Fixed Base Operators (FBOs) at the airport designated by color as well as designating areas for overflow parking. He said they reached out to the Chicago airports who hosted the event four years ago. A lot of aircraft are expected not to stay overnight, and a lot are also expected to go into MSP and St. Paul airports instead of Flying Cloud. He reviewed the runway and taxiway allocations for the four FBOs and noted the FBOs are all on board with the plan. Tschohl asked if they are expecting enough traffic to cause the plan to be implemented. Schmidt said they will definitely see an uptick in the amount of traffic and expect to get a lot of timeshare-type aircraft traffic. Wilson said it will also depend upon how many come in at the same time. Tschohl asked if TraCon or the FAA are putting out any special rules. Wilson said it won't affect their operations that much. Sutila noted the traffic for this event will be "small peanuts" compared to traffic for the Super Bowl. Wilson said they also expect more of that traffic to go to MSP and St. Paul,but the same plan would be in place if we do get more traffic for the Super Bowl. B. AIRCRAFT INCIDENTS AND RUNWAY INCURSIONS—MAC Wilson said there was one runway incursion last week. He noted some of the runway incursions are difficult for the tower to catch. C. AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT UPDATES—MAC Tschohl asked about the maintenance work planned for earlier this summer and if there were any complications. Wilson said some of the updates have been completed on schedule. They had to dig a little deeper than expected in some locations. There were no delays due to the rain we had during the construction. i. FCM New Tower Wilson said the new radar scope will not be installed until October because of a technology change. Schmidt said the FAA changed the funding model to replace towers so it is now based on condition and not safety. We will now have to wait until the new radar scope is installed to see if we will get the new tower. Wilson noted the FAA has said they will FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES July 14, 2016 Page 6 try to add some things to address the situation, and there will be a meeting of the RSAT team to get feedback from the users. ii. FAA Hangar Policy Attachment Tschohl asked if the revised policy regarding non-aeronautical use of the airports will have any effect on the MAC airports. Schmidt said the revised policy follows very closely to our existing policy, so he did not expect much to change. Wilson noted non-aeronautical leases would now have to be month-to-month, and there have been some three month leases. Most of the non-aeronautical leases at Flying Cloud are for office space. He said they contact those who have non-aeronautical uses and let them know they cannot have non-aeronautical operations at the airport. Schmidt said they try to inspect 20% each year but are probably not catching everything. Tschohl asked about progress on developing other hangar sites. Wilson said there are several sites available for construction that would not impede sight lines. Schmidt noted the hangar currently under construction will be a very large one. Wilson said it will accommodate six jets. D. UAS REGULATORY AND INTEGRATION UPDATES —MAC i. FAA Final Rule for Small Unmanned Aircraft (14 CFR 107) Attachment Tschohl noted the documents included in the Commission meeting packet that put forth the new rules for non-hobbyist UAS operations. He reviewed the new rules and commented this may give more clarity about what local governments can do regarding regulation and enforcement. He said there are two additional sets of rules under consideration for UAS under 0.55 pounds and for model aircraft. Schmidt said some exemptions have been made for the model aircraft club at the Lake Elmo airport. VII. OLD BUSINESS A. NOISE ABATEMENT SEMINAR HELD APRIL 16, 2016 Tschohl said the noise abatement seminar was well received. B. FCAAC PRESENTATION TO THE MAY 16, 2016 MAC GENERAL MEETING See Item V.C. VIII. NEW BUSINESS FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES July 14, 2016 Page 7 A. UPCOMING EVENTS AND TOPICS FOR FUTURE FCAAC MEETINGS i. July 16-17: Wings of the North Air Expo ii. October 2016: Airport Viewing Area Update Wilson said the location of the viewing area has been pushed to the east at the edge of the ballpark parking. They had discussions with the City, and City staff are fine with the location. City staff noted they get a lot of people there because of the ballfields. There will be some type of roof structure constructed,but that will be pushed into next year. Barker asked if there has been any community input on the viewing area. Wilson asked Commission members to recommend any groups that would be interested in the viewing area. The area will be 20 X 40, which is larger than their standard of 20 X 24 for such viewing areas at other reliever airports. Barker asked how many viewers could be accommodated in the area. Wilson was not sure of the exact number,but said they plan to put a picnic table in the area so probably six people could use that. Wilson said they plan to put in a speaker system. iii. 2016 or 2017: MnDOT Aeronautics Update on UAS Intesration iv. 2016 OR 2017 (Date TBD): Review 2035 Flyins! Cloud LTCP Draft IX. ADJOURNMENT A. Next Commission Meeting—October 13, 2016 MOTION: Hansen moved, seconded by Kiely, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 6-0. Chair Tschohl adjourned the meeting at 8:18 PM.