Further action on the expansion of Warsaw's airport centers on the issue of power line relocation.
That issue was discussed at Tuesday night's Warsaw Aviation Board meeting.
According to Ken Ross of the engineering firm, NGC, Indianapolis, a dialogue between airport staff and American Electric Power of Fort Wayne regarding the lowering has started.
"The entire staff was receptive to the idea of lowering," Ross said. "As far as how the preliminary design for the project could be accomplished, three options were discussed. The design could be completed by NGC/Commonwealth (under contract with the airport), and review and approval performed by AEP.
"The second option would be that AEP would hire Commonwealth under one of their task order contracts and guide the design with the review and coordination being accomplished by NGC and the airport."
Ross said the remaining option would have AEP do the entire design in house, with review and coordination accomplished by NGC in conjunction with Commonwealth functioning in a checks and balances role.
Under all three scenarios, AEP would be reimbursed under one or both the grants for out-of-pocket expenses.
Ross also said discussions have been held between city of Warsaw officials and county officials to discuss the impact of CR 100E on the airport program.
The main focus has been what would be the most likely alignment for a new route. Ross emphasized that environmental studies, land acquisition, costs and impacts to travel times still need to be evaluated to determine the best recommendation.
The next action needed will be to acquire the traffic counts of several of the roads in this general area and to then use that information to develop several options for evaluation purposes.
It was also suggested that another public information session should be held at a later date to allow the general public to give input.
The board also discussed a draft list of prospective questions for corporate pilots at the airport. Although a draft document and the wording on some of the questions will be changed slightly, its eight questions focus on reasons for missed, delayed, disrupted or altered flight operations.
In part, some of the draft questions include:
- For each operation that you list, provide your best estimate of the cost associated with the that event, for example did you have to make an intermediate stop, a layover, incur land travel costs to the alternate location?
- Do you, or have you, operated your current aircraft out of airports with a shorter runway than Warsaw's?
- Will extending the runway at ASW have an effect on your operations? If so, how?
- Would extending the current runway be more of a convenience (i.e. reducing diversions or utilizing current aircraft to their fullest capacity), or for safety concerns (mitigating unknown runway conditions in inclement weather)?
It was emphasized that as soon as some of the wording on certain questions is changed, the questionnaire will be distributed to corporate operations at the airport. They are to be returned to the airport manager before the April meeting.
In other business, the board approved February claims of $65,960.56, and approved airport manager David Beall to pay for repairs to the airports 2002 Ford F250 truck.
It was noted that total anticipated FAA funds in fiscal year 2011 are $469,528.
The FAA is currently operating under another continuing resolution until March 18.
Warsaw Aviation Board members are Jay Rigdon, Gene Zale, John Yingling, Paul Grossnickle and Warsaw City Council liason Joseph Thallemer.
