Safety Committee Meeting March 3, 1999
The Safety Committee
meeting included PAAM board members, PAAM members and local area residents from Aurora and
Charbonneau. Eighteen people attended the meeting which was held in the conference
room at Aurora Aviation. Shirley and David Durham moderated. The tone of the
meeting was positive, with an apparent willingness of all parties to work together in
addressing the issues. The local residents who attended were invited to join
PAAM so that we may jointly gather and understand the facts of the issues and work
together as good neighbors to find common-ground solutions.
Although the meeting was
to have been focused on safety, due to the mix of attendees the discussions centered
almost entirely on noise and noise abatement.
Topics included:
Traffic patterns
Transponder landing system (TLS)
Control tower
Traffic patterns
In response to observations made by Sue Engels, Aurora resident, there was discussion of
possible changes to the traffic patterns which would mitigate noise levels over Aurora and
Charbonneau. When runway 17 is in use, the normal traffic pattern routes aircraft
over Aurora at full-power at an altitude of 700 to 1000 feet above the ground. Bruce
Bennett commented that one solution may be changing to a right hand traffic pattern, such
as used at Sunriver and Mulino. This would route the airplanes over the freeway.
Reverting to left pattern for runway 35, which was the 'calm wind' runway up until
about 1988, was also mentioned. These changes would reduce the noise over downtown
Aurora, but they may increase the noise over other areas. This issue will be the
topic of further discussion.
Instrument approaches
The existing instrument approaches were discussed by Bruce Bennett. The altitude on
the localizer / DME runway 17 approach over Charbonneau was the primary focus. The
possibility of installing an ILS approach, which would produce a reduced noise profile, is
very low. However, a Transponder Landing System (TLS), which was proposed by Ted
Millar, would keep aircraft at higher altitudes over Charbonneau, may be a better
alternative to the existing approach. Ann Crook of Oregon State Aeronautics said
that a TLS would be worth further attention. The group agreed to study the TLS
system and its possible advantages.
Control tower
Although a formal Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) tower would not be possible for
Aurora for at this time, according to Ann Crook, there could be a possibility of a
'contract' control tower in the future for Aurora. Funding would be a major issue,
as the cost could be as high as one million dollars, which would later be absorbed by the
FAA. Elizabeth Brockway, PAAM president, came out in favor of a tower. Most
other opinions were either 'on-the-fence' or leaning toward 'the-time-may-be-coming'.
Control towers are not favored by many Aurora pilots. Gale Jacobs commented
that a tower is analogous to signal lights at intersections and traffic metering lights on
the freeways--- not desired, but they may become necessary at certain traffic levels.
A tower would not have much impact on reducing noise, but, during hours of
operation, a tower would have accurate records on operations at the airport and would be
able to deal with aircraft that did not observe local rules.
The issue of highest
priority for local residents appears to be noise. Most of the discussion on the
above issues centered on their impact in reducing the noise level. What can local
residents and local pilots do to reduce the noise level? Publishing noise reduction
recommendations and dealing with transient offenders were among the issues discussed.
Jets are a concern, however, comments were made
about new jets being very quiet and old jets being terribly noisy. Pete Lance,
safety committee chair commented that the airport activity and type of traffic would be
driven by economics, but that by working together we can influence the way growth occurs.
Jake
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Please use the discussion section of this web to clarify and embellish these initial
comments on the meeting.
The next PAAM Safety
Committee will be held on Wednesday April 28, 1999. Location to be announced.
