Graueradler
Pattern Altitude
I'll be at the Dallas FAA conference next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Any other POAers going to be there?
POAers at Dallas FAA conference?
- Thread starter Graueradler
- Start date
TangoWhiskey
Touchdown! Greaser!
Uh.... what Dallas FAA conference?
Graueradler
Pattern Altitude
FAA Southwest Region Airports Division Partnership Conference at the Adams Mark hotel.
This is the FAA group that administers the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grant money for Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. There over 500 attendees; airport operators, airport suppliers, and FAA. It is an annual event held somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Our airport manager and 1 or 2 commission members go every year. This will be my third session in 4 years.
There are some overview type general sessions and a lot of break out sessions on topics like airport planning tools, pavement design, finding sources of money for airport improvements, airport safety management systems, community land use planning, etc.
It is an opportunity to learn things, interface with some FAA people that are very important to the future of our airport, and look at what various vendors may have that could be of use to us.
This is the FAA group that administers the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grant money for Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. There over 500 attendees; airport operators, airport suppliers, and FAA. It is an annual event held somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Our airport manager and 1 or 2 commission members go every year. This will be my third session in 4 years.
There are some overview type general sessions and a lot of break out sessions on topics like airport planning tools, pavement design, finding sources of money for airport improvements, airport safety management systems, community land use planning, etc.
It is an opportunity to learn things, interface with some FAA people that are very important to the future of our airport, and look at what various vendors may have that could be of use to us.
Steve
En-Route
Bobby, does RUE use an engineering firm to manage funded airport projects or is it done "in house"?
Graueradler
Pattern Altitude
We use Miller Newell from Newport, AR. On our new terminal building project, we are using a local architect.
We had a major runway improvement project in 2004, design for a new parallel taxiway in 2006 & 2007 (farther from the runway), construction of about 2/3s of the new parallel taxiway in 2007, extension of a secondary taxiway in 2007 (80/20 state grant), scheduled completion of the new parallel taxiway in 2008, construction of a new terminal building in 2008 (state and local money), ramp expansion in 2009, rehab of the existing ramp in 2010. Except for what was noted otherwise, the rest is 90/10 or 95/5 federal with the local match provided by the state (from sales tax on aviation fuel and plane sales). It all adds up to several million dollars.
There is a lot of civil engineering which we have no capacity for plus the engineering firms have a lot of experience at working through the FAA process. Actually, the airport only has three employees including me so we don't have capacity for much of anything except running the airport. My degree is BSME and I have a lot of electronic background from the navy, neither of which is very useful for these projects. If I had time, maybe I'd work an adding a civil engineering degree. It looks like fun.
These FAA conferences are very important to us. The FAA people that we interface with are generally highly competent professionals that get the job done.