Minutes of meeting of Friday, 21 January 2000 1. Meeting: opened at 0900 2. Attendance: 2.1 Present: Tim Scully, Dick Ahrens, Dave Brewer, Trey Loy Susan Winding. 2.2 Excused: Tom Goncharoff, Willow Trent 2.3 Guests: Joel Bornstein, Naomi Jarvie, Richard Gallagher 3. Communications: 3.1 Townsend letter to FAA. 3.2 Correspondence re signs. 4. Hangars: 4.1 Dave Brewer: List of 30 names for rental hangars: 12 contacted - 6 yes and 6 no. 4.2 Placement: Trey Loy identified 4 places, Dick Ahrens 1 place. 4.3 Framework for Report: (in order heard) 4.3.1 Demand: Dave Brewer to provide. 4.3.2 Location: Topography, soil, pavement, drainage. 4.3.3 Financing: Public/private, type of ownership, reversion. 4.3.4 Styles: Uniformity, styles, doors, colors. 4.3.5 History: Trey Loy + Tim Scully to provide. 4.3.6 Maps: Overall + 6 blow-ups, Ahrens to provide. 4.3.7 Costs: Paving@$5/sqft; T-hangars@$20K; Large hangars@$20/sqft. 4.3.8 Rental rates: Incl mortgage + maintenance. 4.3.9 Costs/location: Site preparation. 4.3.10 Lease Agreement: Standardization, insurance, reversion. 4.3.11 Meinershagen survey: Old survey of other airports. 4.3.12 Present County strategy: addition of insurance. 4.3.13 Interest: Supervisors. 4.4 Goal: Draft in two months: matrix, with recommendations, and a minority report. 5. Public notice: The Mendocino Beacon needs to be notified by e-mail on the Friday before the Thursday before the meeting. 6. Meeting closed: 1100. The next meeting will be 2/18/00 at 9:00am at the Clubhouse at the Woods The agenda for the next meeting is: Approve the minutes of the last meeting Communications (letters, FAXes, etc, sent/received since last meeting) Additional hangars at the airport will be the main focus of this and the next few meetings. Reports from subcommittees Public comment Agree on a date, time and place for the next meeting Agree on agenda for next meeting Members of the Little River Airport Advisory Committee ------------------------------------------------------ Dick Ahrens pilot, airport neighbor Dave Brewer pilot, lives near airport Tom Goncharoff Trey Loy non-pilot, lives near airport Tim Scully pilot, computer programmer, lives near airport commutes by air to Oakland weekly Willow Trent airport neighbor, non-pilot Susan Winding airport neighbor, non-pilot, business owner ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- STANLEY TOWNSEND DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION Ex Officio Road Commissioner County Engineer COUNTY OF MENDOCINO County Surveyor DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 340 LAKE MENDOCINO DRIVE UKIAH, CALIFORNIA 95482-9432 27 December 1999 Dan Morse Supervisor, Safety Standards Division FAA, San Francisco ADO 831 Mitten Road, Suite 215 Burlingame, CA 9401 0 RE: LITTLE RIVER AIRPORT GPS APPROACH Dear Mr. Morse: I am writing in reply to your letter of May 7, 1999, asking for technical information regarding Little River Airport, in preparation for the establishment of non-precision GPS instrument approaches. It has taken quite a while to collect the information to provide a detailed response. As discussed with Tim Scully, Chairman of our Little River Airport Advisory Committee, we are providing this information in the form of a rough draft for your comments. Once we have your comments, we will send you a formal response. The size and approach speed of aircraft using the instrument approach will determine some of the key factors involved. Although the vast majority of the traffic at Little River Airport consists of small light aircraft, there are occasional operations by large and fast aircraft. The largest and fastest are: Aircraft Landing Weight Wingspan Approach Speed Airport Reference Coast Guard C130 155,000 lbs. 132 ft. 137 kt. C-iv Grumman Gulfstream IV 58,500 lbs. 77 ft. 145 kt. D-ii This suggests that we should use approach speed "D" and Airplane Design Group IV when responding to your questions. The visibility minimums determine the other factors. It appears that a one-mile visibility minimum is the lowest practical value at this time, as Mendocino County does not own the land needed to secure the larger trapezoids and obstacle free zones associated with lower minimums. We hope to someday have an instrument approach with less than one-mile visibility minimums. 1) Threshold Siting Criteria. With minimums of one-mile we are in Row "c" of Figure A2-1. This implies the 20:1 trapezoid starts at the runmway threshold at a width of 200 feet on either side of center line and grows to 500 feet on each side of center line 1,500 feet from the threshold. With respect to Runway 29, we recommend keeping the threshold at the end of the pavement. The Little River Pilot's Association has surveyed the location and height of 695 trees on and around the airport, using a transit and a laser rangefinder. Quite a few trees were removed from the approach trapezoids since the NOAA Obstruction chart was produced, but there are still 43 trees penetrating the Runway 29 approach trapezoid by amounts ranging up to 30 feet. With respect to Runway 11, we recommend that the threshold of Runway 11 remain displaced at 198 feet. There were five trees identified as penetrating the Runway 11 approach trapezoid by amounts of up to 30 feet. A large number of trees were found to be penetrating the transition zones at the sides of the runway by amounts of up to 45 feet. The appended maps provide more details on the trees. Mendocino County is still investigating and assessing what to do about the trees that are excessively high. Meanwhile, we would appreciate it if you could proceed with the design of the GPS approaches, raising the approach minimums to account for the presence of the trees. 2) For runways serving large airplanes (e.g., C- 130), the OFZ extends 200 feet on either side of centerline and 200 feet from the end of the runway. The OFZ is clear with the exception of various signs, some of which lack the frangible mountings specified in AC 150/5345-44F paragraph 4.1.2. 3) Hold signs and lines. The runway has been fog sealed and striped as shown in Figure 2 of AC 150/5340-IG with non-precision instrument runway markings. Runway 11 has the displaced threshold markings specified in Figure 5 of AC 15015340-1 G. The hold line at each taxiway is 250 feet from the runway centerline in accord with AC 150/5340-1 G Table 4. The lines are yellow and conform to Figure 10. The required holding position signs are in position at the new hold lines. The signs are retroreflective and adhere to the specifications in AC 150/5340-18C Paragraph 5 and AC 150/5345-44. The hold signs are not lit at this time. The Little River Airport Advisory Committee is starting a review of the Airport Master Plan and ALP. Would the implementation of the GPS approach be delayed if the ALP were not updated until after that review is completed? The review process will probably take over a year. Attached is a sununary of the tree survey results, maps showing tree heights and aerial photos of the airport, all supplied by the Pilots Association and the Airport Advisory Committee. Thank you for your attention. Sincerely, STANLEY TOWNSEND Director of Transportation cc: Ron Clenney, Los Angeles Flight Procedures Office Tim Scully, Little River Airport Advisory Committee File 24-19 Enc. maps Appendix A We have surveyed 141 trees in the 20:1 approach trapezoids. 93 of these are below the height limits set FAR 77 and hence are not a problem. This leaves 48 surveyed trees in the trapezoids which are too high by amounts varying from 5 feet to 25 feet. Tables are presented below which shows how these are distributed with respect to "excess height". The "bin" values are excess height in feet. Thus, for example, there are 10 trees in the 0-5 foot excess height bin in the table of 141 total trees surveyed in the trapezoids. In the tables below, "Runway 29" refers to the East end of the runway and "Runway 11" refers to the West end of the runway. Table #1 Table #2 Table #3 ----------------------- ------------------------ ------------------- 141 trees in trapezoids Runway 29 trapezoid Runway 29 trapezoid ---------------------- 80 trees, 41 off-airport 41 off-airport trees Bin Frequency ------------------------ -------------------- 0 93 Bin Frequency Bin Frequency 5 10 0 37 0 14 10 13 1 0 1 0 15 7 5 9 5 4 20 9 10 11 10 7 25 9 15 7 15 3 30 0 20 9 20 8 35 0 25 7 25 2 40 0 30 0 30 3 Tables #2 and #3 above show that 43 excessively high trees were surveyed in the Runway 29 trapezoid. Of these, 27 excessively high trees were not on airport land. This is a reflection of parcel 121-360-10, which is not owned by the County and which overlaps the Runway 29 trapezoid. The two tables below show that only five trees were surveyed in the Runway 11 trapezoid which were too high (none were off-airport). Table #4 Table #5 ----------------------- ------------------- Runway 11 trapezoid Runway 11 trapezoid 61 trees, 19 off-airport 19 off-airport trees ----------------------- ------------------- Bin Frequency Bin Frequency 0 56 0 19 5 1 1 0 10 2 5 0 15 0 10 0 20 0 15 0 25 2 20 0 30 0 25 0 35 0 30 0 35 0 35 0 The approach trapezoids are at each end of the runway and have transition zones at their sides. There also is a transition zone along each side of the runway. Approximately 20% of the length of the transition zones were surveyed, a total of 554 trees. Even in the 20% of the transition zones which were surveyed, only a fraction of the trees were measured, but this is hopefully a representative sample. total of all trees Runway 11 transition zones Runway 29 transition zones 695 trees 213 trees, one off-airport 340 trees, 35 off-airport ------------------ -------------------------- ------------------------- Bin Frequency Bin Frequency Bin Frequency 0 296 0 51 0 152 5 40 5 17 1 0 10 74 10 24 5 13 15 79 15 31 10 37 20 89 20 35 15 41 25 59 25 23 20 45 30 38 30 22 25 27 35 17 35 11 30 16 40 3 40 0 35 6 45 0 45 0 40 3 45 0 In the Runway 11 transition zones, 3/4 of the trees surveyed were too high, but only one of these was off airport property. The one off-airport tree surveyed as excessively high in the Runway 11 transition area is on parcel 121-33-7. In the Runway 29 transition zones, a little over 1/2 of the trees surveyed were too high and about 10% of the trees were off airport land. The trees around the airport seem to grow to a maximum height somehwere in the neighborhood of 60 to 80 feet. The transition zones along the side of the runway start at ground level at the edge of the "primary surface" which is 250 feet from the runway centerline and slopes upward 1 foot for every 7 feet of distance from the primary surface. There is already a cleared area for almost 200 feet to the South of the runway edge and nearly 400 feet to the North of the runway edge. At the Runway 11 (West) end of the runway, only a few (7) of the surveyed trees with excessive height were off airport property. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lrairpt Sent: January 06, 2000 11:35 AM To: Tim Scully Subject: signs Tim Just got some information on signs back from the sign man. Will have it here in the office for you. No price as yet but will only take a day or two. Then about 10 days to make the signs and have them to us. Dave Thorpe Airport Supervisor -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tim Scully Sent: January 06, 2000 11:47 AM To: 'lrairpt'; Tim Scully Subject: RE: signs Good news. Thanks very much. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tim Scully Sent: January 17, 2000 7:21 AM To: 'Dave Thorpe' Cc: Tim Scully Subject: signs I looked over the FAXed images of the proposed signs. Except for the smallest sign, which is missing a line of text, they look fine. We still need the 29-11 sign for the central taxiway. This one is the most urgent. Thank you very much for following up on this! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lrairpt Sent: January 18, 2000 12:21 PM To: Tim Scully Subject: Signs Tim just got the price back on the signs. The 3 big signs 3'x2' are $248.00 plus tax, the Noise Sensitive Neighborhood with the add line is $186.50 + tax, the runway sign is $96.00 + tax or a total of $1026.50 plus tax. The runway sign is 36"x6". I have the information in the office. Thanks Dave Thorpe Airport Supervisor --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: