Has anyone heard about the FAA issues for through the fence operations? If so, what are your thoughts, ideas and viewpoints on this? We know that AOPA is actively pursuing this issue, but there are only 50 airports that are being or will be affected by this. At least to our knowledge.
We purchased land in North Carolina at an airpark next to Currituck Airport. We are getting ready to move there in the next couple of months and build our home. Before we move forward with this we want to find out as much information as possible on this subject and see what others think about this.
You are correct we were not looking for that type of information, but that is interesting. Thanks
We would like to know what you think about the FAA wanting to eliminate through the fence access. Now this information may not be accurate. They may want to find a way to charge a fee instead of eliminating it. We are not sure. If anyone knows for sure that would also be helpful to us.
Does the airpark have an “association” to contact for your airport specific question? If you are an AOPA member, I would be calling them directly as well.
I get an emailing from AOPA or some other website (Avweb?) mentioning this “through the fence” but I didn’t pay that much attention to it.
Me, can’t afford that luxury of a hangar home so I don’t have any personal thoughts. Hopefully others may give you some more personal insight then I just gave.
It isn’t the FAA wanting to do this it is the Homeland Security Administration pushing it. After we bought our house here we didn’t move up right away and when we came up in February 2008 we saw that we had a brand new bright and shiny chain link/cyclone fence across the back of our property where it abuts the local county owned airport. Nice No Trespassing, Airport Property signs, too. But, the drive-in gates are still always open.
I am guessing that municipally owned airfields would be responding first and then others would follow. A perimeter cyclone fence would be a pretty big expense.
It makes sense that cutting off access from “Air Parks” would certainly be a result (Unless the fence came in and around all the parking places). So finding who is responsible for security and/or US Government liaison at your local airpatch would be the best bet for answers about what is going to happen.
Thank you for your responses. We are members of AOPA and there is an association there that is looking into this too. Everyone is very concerned there about this.
Thank you WildRicer for the information. We will check into who is responsible for the security and/or is the Government liaison. That is an excellent idea.
Lieberma we couldn’t afford this either until we suddenly realized we could both sell off our children and that will pay for the new house. They are all adults so we think we can get a good price for them. Food and clothing will be less since they all work.
Actually folks it is the FAA who is driving this directive or policy and not Homeland Security. There is another Homeland Security element to this but the immediate issue at hand is that the FAA is saying “residential land use is incompatible”. They do not differentiate between residential and air parks. Air park people love airplane noise and sleep better with it. Air park people also serve as first responders and security for the airport.
The FAA has said “Do away with residential TTF agreements”. They have also said “Buy easement rights if necessary but get plan to end residential TTF agreements”. They are threatening airports to withhold funding if they do not do away with residential TTF agreements. There is one airport where they were withholding a $6M runway expansion and told the town that they need to plan on ending residential TTF agreements before they will hand over the $6M.
AOPA has tried not to involve itself much but they are being pushed to backup their members NOW as this truly is an attack on general aviation.
I have plenty of information on this topic. This is ridiculous position the FAA is taken and they need to rethink this.
The idea that a residential air park is incompatible with an airport is ludicrous. I know that there have been and still are issues over noise with residential properties being next to airports. What better way to alleviate this problem then to have an air park next to them instead?
Robb, do you have any idea as to when the FAA is possibly going to make a final decision on this? We do not want to relocate, build our home, only to find that they close everything off.
Is your airport federally funded? If not then you have nothing to worry about? The other question is do you have easements on your property that provide you access to the runway. If so then that is a level of security so if the FAA tries to shut you off the only way will be if they buy your easement from you for $1M or whatever is reasonable.
Yes, the airport is federally funded and I have an easement that provides access. I understand that the stronger position would be to have deeded access. I will be contacting a lawyer to find out about this.
Having them buy the easement is not going to help either. It is a way to quiet some people by paying them off, but the bottom line is we purchased the land to live with our plane and to enjoy the airport.
I also understand that another issue is the selling and building of residential/airparks being built too close to the airports. Have you heard anything about this? If you have, what is the distance they are looking at?
Yes, there are some air parks with set back issues. The set back depends on the class and length and width of the runway. Also, at a minimum you must count 125 back from the centerline and then you can go 1 foot for every 7 feet back to calculate height but this is independent of the actual setup back from the runway for the building envelope depending on class - length and width of runway.
On the FAA and their very misguided broad view on ‘residential is an incompatible land use’ I think with the AOPA’s help and maybe a nationwide class action and or at least lobbying effort they will at least re-think why they are attacking air parks who are quite often the lifeblood of the local airport and the people who protect the FAA’s investment in that airport.
so I don’t have any personal thoughts. Hopefully others may give you some more personal insight then I just gave.
