Wilsonville Spokesman Online

Aviation department outlines airport master plan process

Proposed control tower could change the nature of the Aurora State Airport

• By: Patrick Johnson  
• Published: 12/22/2009 3:31:12 PM

Photo By: Patrick JohnsonAurora State Airport
Chris Cummings, planning and project manager for the Oregon Department of Aviation (left), holds up the current Aurora State Airport Master Plan during a Wilsonville Chamber of Commerce Governmental Affairs committee meeting last week.

As state officials enter the flight pattern of creating a new Aurora Airport Master Plan, they were in Wilsonville recently, addressing concerns, answering questions and clarifying positions.

The Wilsonville Chamber of Commerce’s Governmental Affairs Committee invited State Aviation Board Chairman Mark Gardiner and aviation staffer Chris Cummings talk about the master planning process and the proposed tower at Aurora Airport.

Gardiner is chairman of the seven-person volunteer state aviation board that oversees the state’s aviation department. When the master plan is completed sometime next year the aviation board will be one of the bodies that votes for its approval.

Questions were raised about a control tower, economic development and the activity and flight patterns at the airport during the lunch meeting on Dec. 2.

“We don’t have a tower now,” Cummings said. “We don’t know how tall the new tower will be. There has been speculation it could 30, 35, or 40 feet. The fact of the matter is we are under contract right now with the FAA to do a siting study for the tower.”

Cummings said the analysts will come out to the airport and take photos and then do a computer model to determine where the tower should be sited so tower controllers can see the entire runway.
When asked if the tower would be included in the current master plan – it wasn’t listed in the 2000 master plan – Cummings said it was likely, but he couldn’t guarantee the tower would be included in the new plan.

Gardiner said that there were advantages to having a control tower, in that air traffic controllers mandate where planes would fly when they approach, and leave, the airport.

“I don’t like to fly into Aurora because it doesn’t have a tower,” Gardiner said. “Because a busy airport doesn’t have a tower, it’s scary. So aside from the land use and noise issues and all that, I just don’t like it from an air operations point of view.”

Originally, he said, the state estimated that by 2012 there would be 288 aircraft based at Aurora, making 97,714 take offs and landings.

However, recent estimates have shown that 429 aircraft are based at Aurora this year, with only 83,000 take offs and landings.

He said that with a control tower, some of those based aircraft will leave because some pilots don’t like using radios. He said the mix of the aircraft at Aurora would change from piston and propeller airplanes, to more turbine powered aircraft.

“One thing that is important to understand is that even though (turbine and fan planes) are bigger and heavier and carry more people, it doesn’t mean they are noisier than (prop planes),” he said. “In fact because of the way they fly and the nature of the aircraft we could have a situation where (the number of propeller planes) goes down and (the number of turbine and fan planes) goes up and operations stays the same and noise is lower.”

Gardiner said the turbine aircraft normally don’t spend a lot of time circling the airport because of the cost involved in running them in maintenance and fuel.

“It is the prop, by the way that makes the noise,”  “We will see, it’s my guess it will provide, if you have a tower, you will have better compliance to the flight pattern, less time in the pattern and more predictable results on the ground in terms of noise.”

Gardiner said the analysis would be part of the master plan process they are starting, and which is funded in part from the FAA. It is expected to cost $300,000.

Aviation officials also said that they most likely would be looking at the weight bearing capacity of the runway, the asphalt used, the length of runway and the navigational aids during the master planning process.

Gardiner said of the 28 airports the state currently operates, Aurora is the most active and is one of the top five in the state regarding business, aircraft operations and recreation activities.
“It’s really only surpassed by the Port of Portland airports, specifically Portland and Hillsboro,” he said. “The Aurora State Airport is a major employment center and it has some interesting elements to it for an airport of its size.”

Gardiner pointed to Vans Aircraft that manufactures kit-built aircraft, Pacific Coast Avionics, Columbia Helicopters and aviations operations on the airport. He also said the airport has approximately 1,000 jobs. Major corporations have partnerships to operate planes out of the Aurora Airport, and corporate-based aircraft also operate out of the airport.

When Wilsonville Mayor Tim Knapp asked if the master plan would include an economic development study, state aviations officials said it was a complex land use and ownership puzzle.
“There is additional private land (on the airport) that could be developed for aviation purposes,” Gardiner said. “That would be subject to economic analysis that the mayor has asked about.”

Gardiner said the airport would have to follow Marion County land use planning rules.

Knapp raised issues about how infrastructure would be paid for if the airport is expanded, specifically pointing to increasing road, water and sewer capacity.

“All those things seem to me to go pretty intimately with an airport plan, yet I’m not hearing you look at it in that depth or viewpoint,” Knapp said.

Cummings said the master plan was funded by the Federal Aviation Administration and that it dictates what is studied. Economic development will be touched on, he said,  but will not be the primary focus of the study.

“We will touch on it, but we won’t address it to the level you are suggesting,” Cummings said. “We have invited members of all the communities to sit on this so they can say, at least, if there is something they see that comes up, and ask if it’s possible.”

 

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