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M-ASA Needs Your Help

Bob Jackson
1/18/2005

Mid-Atlantic Soaring Association (M-ASA) Needs Your Help

Last week the Airport Manager at Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK)
closed down the turf strip which has been used by M-ASA for the past 40
years. The claim is that the grass strip does not meet FAA standards,
but thus far there is no clear cut definition of those standards. Bob
Jackson, President of M-ASA would appreciate hearing from the SSA
Membership about any other locations around the country where there is
a turf runway parallel and adjacent to a paved runway. Currently,
similar situations are known to exist at Elmira, NY, Poughkeepsie, NY,
and Dansville, VA. Bob feels that if he could learn more about these
and similar situations, he could then follow up to determine if the
circumstances are similar and, if so, what sort of arrangement they
have with the FAA. In addition, these examples will help when M-ASA
officials have meetings with the Airport Commission, the City, and the
FAA. Please e-mail your comments to or phone
717-642-9886. Thanks for your help.

(You may also respond through the thread. I'll make sure relevant
information makes it to Bob. M-ASA's approximately 170 members operate
out of facilities at FDK and a club-owned airport in Fairfield, PA
(W73). Between the two airports, we maintain a fleet of approximately
100 club and privately owned aircraft.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Jan8.html

I really hate to say it, but they are setting the tone and lobbying for the
FAA funds to change the operational profile of this airport. In the long
run you may have already lost this battle and when they get the longer
runway and tower they may eventually pull the safety card and glider
operations will no longer be welcomed. It appears it's already inconvenient
to M-ASA not to operate from the turf strip. So will it become such a
nuisance that your members won't want to operate there anyway? Or it that
the case already? How do glider operations fit into the master plan?
Clearly continued use of the turf strip wasn't in it. Has M-ASA ever
participated on the airport board? These are often voluntarily civic
positions.

It doesn't appear the decision was taken in a vacuum, but this is the normal
airport manager on a career path climb. I've seen it locally. We don't
even have a tower and the local airport manager told the CAP glider ops no.
They asked permission. IMVHO they should have shown up, hooked up and towed
away. (Greeley/Weld County Airport) We don't have the tower yet, but we
have a new 10000ft runway and the airport manager's been lobbying for FAA
tower funds for three years. Part of the improvement was to shut down the
short UL runway.

Another local airport has built up so much that I personally consider
continued operation of the jump school to be hazardous. A lot of the open
space is now hangars, and residential and industrial developmen(Vance Brand,
Longmont).

A small downtown airport that we've used occassionally for rides and our
maintainers operate out of is going away completely as the land values now
out weigh its value as an airport. (Fort Collins Downtown) A small group is
trying to find a spot to open a new airport in an area where organized
property owners recently shot down efforts to build a bypass road. Think an
airport will fly there?

I believe I also heard recently that the manager of another local airport
(Loveland-Fort Collins) had shut down use of the taxiway/'runway' that the
ultralights had been using.

Where will you get the best long term results for your efforts?

Good luck,

Frank Whiteley