City of Lawrence

Aviation Advisory Board Minutes

November 2, 2005

 

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Rick Bryant, David Downing, Travis Atwood, Gary Fish, and Jim Stogsdill

MEMBERS ABSENT:

Bob Newton and Theresa Klinkenberg

STAFF PRESENT:

Steve Bennett

PUBLIC PRESENT:

Lloyd Hetrick, Bruce Liddel, Ross Razak ,Ron Renz and Suman Saripalli

 

 

Rick Bryant called the meeting to order at 6:40 p.m. and David Downing recorded the meeting minutes.

 

1.                   Review and Approval of August 2005 meeting minutes

 

The August 2005 Board Meeting minutes were reviewed and approved by a 5-0 vote.

 

2.         Airport Managers Report

 

Debbie Van Saun, Airport Manager, was not present but she had distributed her report by e-mail to the Board members prior to this meeting.  The Board reviewed her report and did not have any questions.  A copy of the report is attached.

 

3.                   FBO Report

 

Lloyd Hetrick briefed the Board on a number of activities including:

A request by a group who offer rides in WW II training aircraft at the LMA.  This is similar to the Top Gun organization that has operated at LMA for the last few years.

This year’s NASCAR activity at LMA reflected a reduction in the activity from previous year’s race weekends.  The fuel sales in 2005 were approximately 50 percent less than last year’s sales.  Lloyd intends to contact the FAA to get information about aircraft activities at the other local airports during race weekends.  He also plans to travel to other events to talk directly to racing team pilots and operators and to review recent LMA promotion activities to see if there is something that can be done to increase the traffic in future years.

Lloyd and his team are working on getting Part 135 approval from the FAA.  Approval is expected in February 2006.

 

4.         Presentation by Local Engineering Business Representative

Suman Saripalli, KalScott Engineering’s New Business Coordinator briefed the Board on KalScott’s recent research and development activities and their future plans.  KalScott Engineering, Inc. is a small Lawrence business that specializes in Uninhabited Aerospace Vehicles (UAVs) design, UAV and piloted aircraft operation and system integration engineering services to a variety of Federal Agencies including NASA, the National Science Foundation and several DoD organizations.  Mr. Saripalli briefed the Board on a number of recent projects and indicated that KalScott has a need for a new engineering flight facility.  He wanted to alert the Board to the fact that the Lawrence Municipal Airport is one of the possible locations that are being considering.  The Board enthusiastically supported KalScott relocation to the airport.  Rick Bryant indicated that this is exactly the kind of aviation business that the Board is actively trying to attract to the airport.  The Board offered to work with KalScott and help with the formal processes needed to make that occur.

5.         Charity Flight Fundraiser

 

Gary Fish continues his efforts to organize a one-day charity ride fund-raising event to benefit Rod Mohr’s daughter, who is fighting cancer. The Board asked Gary to continue to work on its behalf for this worthy endeavor and to report back to the board at the December meeting.

 

6.                   Next Board Meeting

 

The next Board Meeting was set for Thursday, December 15 at 6:30 p.m. in the Richardson Memorial Pilots' Lounge at the LMA Terminal Building.

 

7.                   Meeting Adjournment

 

The meeting adjourned at 8:30 p.m.

Airport Update

November 2, 2005

 

 

ü      2005 Lighting Project

A pre-construct meeting was held October 10, 2005.  A notice to proceed was issued at that time, however, due to materials delivery estimates, the project was not scheduled to start counting days until 10/31/05. 

 

ü      Updated Project Estimates

Attached are updated project cost estimates for the full parallel taxiway to Runway 1-19 and Runway 15-33 runway safety area grading projects.  One scenario FAA is considering is the construction of the full taxiway in 2006 along with the design of the runway safety area, with construction of the runway safety area in 2007.

 

ü      Rental Revenue Update

The attached reflects the current rental status of all leases at the airport.  We continue to work to fill t-hangars as leases expire.  The person in C-8 says he’s renewing but hasn’t sent me his signed agreement yet.  A letter was sent to C-10 on 10/10 but no word back yet on renewal.  We currently have eight people on the waiting list.