I attended an airport meeting last night about the proposal to close runway 17-35. It is in the master plan and has been since 2010. Good news is the airport director wants to work with GA pilots to keep it open as long as possible but did say it will eventually be closed to build more hangars.

A FAA representative was there and it was great to here the FAA's side. Something I thought was interesting was he stated the FAA is reviewing airports and is working to address airports with the "open V" runway configuration. IDA used to have a closed V but in the 90s the FAA was focused on eliminating those so our runways were reconfigured a little and changed to an open V. Now they are addressing open V and it seems that their desired solution is to close one of the runways.

Hope the pilots around IDA will join together and fight to keep 17-35. For those of you that have a airport with runways in a V configuration I hope you get involved with your airport management if you want to keep both your runways.

Do they just assume that we all can handle cross-winds? How do you practice then when the all the runways in the area are basically the same?

Good question. Guess you go find a rarely used country road.

Is this closing of runways a safety thing or a money-for-maintenance thing? There's a few airports around Puget Sound (Port Angeles, Skagit, & maybe Arlington) with v configurations which have had the lesser-used runway shortened narrowed or both. The only thing I can figure is a smaller runway means less funding required to maintain it. Kind of a bummer, but I'd rather have a short and/or narrow crosswind runway available, than a full length & width one with an unusable surface & X's on the ends.

Considering the state of the economy & the state of GA, closing a runway to make room to build hangars seems .....questionable. New people are not getting into flying, and hangars are not being sold....at least where I live. Seems like a shame to tear up $$$$ worth of existing infrastructure, is there no other place on the airport grounds to build more hangars?

hotrod180 wrote:Considering the state of the economy & the state of GA, closing a runway to make room to build hangars seems .....questionable. New people are not getting into flying, and hangars are not being sold....at least where I live.

Yeah, aviation is weird and demand very uneven. Some airports are dying slow painful deaths while others have waiting lists and are expanding. Google tells me the KIDA is one of the ones with a waiting list.

Runways have classifications that designate minimum length and standard width. 17-35 used to be 150' wide but when it was rebuild in 2004 the only built it to 75' because it was classified as B-2 small. In the 90s it was shortened but only to make the runway configuration an open V rather than a closed V.

My interpretation is the only reason they will close the runway it to have space to build more hangars. There are some safety concerns but thy can be addressed. Budget isn't an issue. I think they have enough room for more hangars without closing the runway.

As for a wait list to get in hangars, there very well could be one. If they kicked all the guys out that haven't flown in decades, have wood shops instead of airplanes and are storing non aviation related items they probably wouldn't have a wait list anymore. To go along with that I know one guy that does currently fly but has his plane in a different hangar because his city hangar has a dirt floor and isn't heated. He doesn't want to let the city hangar go because he only pays like 60$/mo for it. I asked how much one of those hangars would be if it came open and is was almost 200$/mo. So if they did build new hangars they wouldn't be available at a price that I or the people I know want a hangar would be willing to pay.

What does the "Open V" term mean? Is it open at the pointed end? Is this one an open V, closed V, or an X

Bowers Field, Ellensburg

"Open V" means open at the closed end.


I would think the FAA would consider Bowers Field a closed V.

Interesting logic train there....which seems to be derailed at the moment. It seems crazy to tear up a crosswind runway to build more hangars, indeed.

That said, there is a lot that goes into siting hangars.....setbacks from the runways, taxiway access, power, etc.

Sounds to me as if the GA pilots there need to sit down with airport management and help them find a more "user friendly" means to the end they desire.

Some managers of smaller airports seem to think they're an airline airport, and kind of forget that 90 % of the airplanes that fly there aren't airliners.....

MTV

mtv wrote:Sounds to me as if the GA pilots there need to sit down with airport management and help them find a more "user friendly" means to the end they desire.

Some managers of smaller airports seem to think they're an airline airport, and kind of forget that 90 % of the airplanes that fly there aren't airliners.....

That is exactly what we are trying to do. Our AOPA ASN rep is doing an awesome job organizing and getting people involved. Think we had 60 pilots at the meeting the other night. The airport management seems to be willing to work with us so hopefully we can come to a agreeable solution.

Speaking of AOPA Airport Support Network representatives....I contacted AOPA to find out who the ASN rep was for my airport when I saw that they indicated we had one. They told me his name, someone I've never heard of although I've been based there for 20 years and thought I knew all the airport regulars. Never heard anyone of that name speak up or otherwise make themselves known at Port meetings or airport gatherings. I asked AOPA to put me in touch with him, due to privacy issues they said they would ask him to contact me but I never heard a thing from him. Weird.