General Aviation Stakeholder Meeting

September 17, 2024

The room was packed for the meeting with at least 50 people attending. Trevor Brum presented and Craig Piper contributed. He sent out the slides from his presentation.
Let Trevor ‘tbrumm’ at the airport email site ‘co.slo.ca.us’ know if you want to be on the list and didn’t get the notification for this meeting.

Site N

At the last meeting people brought up the issue of trash at Site N. The airport added a large trash bin and a large recycling bin more than a month ago. They are located at the Broad St side of the N3 (trash) and N4 (recylcing) hangar rows, in what used to be the temporary vehicle parking stalls.

Some people asked about oil recycling and it was pointed out that Autozone and O’Relly will recycle your oil and probably JB Dewar. [The trash company will give you an oil recycling container and pick up oil on your regular trash day as well. The auto parts stores will also recycle batteries and I have recycled tires at the tire stores.]

There is a tenant feedback form that you can use to submit questions and comments to the airport staff. [Information for airport hangars and tiedowns can be found on this page.]

Someone brought up the issue of trash for Site T (pink hangars) and tiedowns. The airport will look into it.

Public Information Specialist

Joe Goble started working about a month ago. ‘jagoble’ at the airport email site ‘co.slo.ca.us’

Oceano Bikes

If you have single-speed bikes they would like to put some at the Oceano Airport. People brought up that Cal Poly has lots of abandoned bikes and they can be bought at the bike shop behind the Post Office for $20.

Tower Updates

Dylan let us know that the tower is fully staffed right now. He also thanked us for contributing to the GoFundMe for Rick Johnson whose daughter was killed in a traffic accident.

By the end of the year they will be able to reduce the separation for departing IFR traffic from 5 miles to 3 miles so that should allow people to get going faster.

Opposite direction traffic can be accommodated on a case-by-case basis but it is not usually available. If you need it for a checkride or some other reason, let them know in advance and they will see if they can coordinate with Santa Barbara and accomodate you.

They have received funding for another controller for next year.

There is an ongoing traffic study to see if the tower needs to be open later than 8 PM. Dylan listens to the tapes and counts the takeoffs and landings. The data he has right now indicates that another controller can be justified until 10 PM.

At the last RSAT meeting there was a long discussion about non-conforming taxiway markings for Taxiways M and J. They decided to leave them as they are. [Local pilots know to call the tower for permission to taxi on them but occasionally transients who refuel don’t know to stop before entering Taxiway M.] In order make them conform to the standards there would have to be markings 15' from the current edge lines which would mean that people in Site R would need permission from the tower to get to their hangars. [After the meeting I suggested that if they want to make the taxiway conform they could make M part of the apron and have it start at the ILS critical area boundary. Taxiway J could start near the compass rose and maybe put a short Taxiway K at the beginning of Rwy 7.]

Janice Odell mentioned that she was asked to do a 360 when on a right downwind and was wondering why since the hills are right there. She told them she was unable and was given an extended downwind. Dylan explained that it’s up to the controller whether to ask for a 360 or extend the downwind but they are willing to accomodate you if you are unable. He informed us that when the tower is VFR they don’t reference terrain so they don’t know if they are asking you to fly into hills [or clouds]. You need to tell them that you are unable to fly where they want you to and they will adjust.

Future GA Development

The leases for Sites J and K expired in 2022 and they are now on a month to month basis. The runway expansion will require that the area be reduced from 3 acres to 2.It will be about 2 1/2 to three years before any construction starts on moving the runway. The plan is to put out an RFP for developing the site sometime in the future. There is water and electricity available for developers. One option is for the current lease holders to remove hangars that are affected but other options will be considered.

Erik Steeb asked if a meeting could be set up with the Site T hangar association to talk about moving the porta-hangars to the West Side and Trevor agreed to do that.

After the meeting

After the meeting I [John Scarry] had a conversation with Trevor and Craig about options that might allow Rwy 7/25 to remain open. The area behind the trash company looks like it should be available for hangars and businesses but it is much lower than the runway and will be even lower when the runway extension is built so it’s not likely that access to the runway will be available from that location.

We also talked about shade structures on the West Side instead of hangars and I emailed them some information and a request that they think about putting out an RFP for building them. We also talked about Taxiway M and J markings and I made the suggestion mentioned above. An ideal location for these structures would be along Rwy 7/25 as in the current plan but Craig thinks that current setback rules would not allow it.