The future of Executive Airport
By EARL ROGERS
Pilots know that careful flight planning will get them where they’re going safely and without violating the regulations. The same holds true for airport planners. After the flurry of a threatened closure of Executive Airport that began more than three years ago, Sacramento County took-off for a new destination. The airport planners have taken the time, done the studies, followed the regulations, and involved the public in an effort to create a new master plan that will define the future of the airport.
Interestingly, some people still have lingering concerns about prospects for other than airport uses of the land, as evidenced during the Q&A period when a questioner asked, “What do you see is the future of the airport? Are you talking decades?”
Glen Rickelton, a county planner, answered, “That’s why we have a 20 year horizon, a near term which is 5 years, an interim term of 10 to15 years and a final horizon of 20 years. The FAA will look at 20 years. That does not equate to the viability of the airport. We don’t see it going away. We see this facility as a general aviation airport into the foreseeable future.”
Those remarks, coming from a County official, were reassuring to the questioner, but the City still owns the land. No one can predict for certain what the foreseeable future holds for the City of Sacramento. Vigilance is no doubt a good thing for those who support continued existence of the airport.
What is new in the Executive Airport Master Plan?
The multiple alternatives (eight altogether) presented at the March 2009 Community Meeting have been summarized into a single Conceptual Development Plan with these main features:
• Retain the same basic operation of the airport as it exists today.
• Close the north/south runway (16/34) when it is scheduled for resurfacing in the future. This saves money and will free-up land for other airport uses.
• Construct parallel taxiways on both sides of the remaining two runways in the future, when the time is right.
• Focus on landside development, in other words on facilities both on and off the airport. A goal is to make the airport as financially self-supporting as possible. Of particular interest is a strip of land along Freeport near the airport south boundary suggested for non-aviation facilities.
• Improve the safety area at the southwest end of the main runway, and extend a runway protection zone to the northeast for Visual Flight Rule (VFR) arrivals per FAA Standards.
Aircraft noise and the county noise ordinance
In 1994, the Sacramento County Supervisors adopted a noise ordinance that specifies a take-off noise limit for departing airplanes. This noise limit can be factored into a computer model that will predict a Community Noise Equivalent Level and plot noise contours in the vicinity of the airport. Noise contours exceeding the CNEL must be contained within the airport boundaries. In other words, loud airplane noise should not spill over into the community.
The problem is that not everyone uses the same model, nor do noise restrictions apply equally to all types of aircraft. Some aircraft might be excluded that otherwise would be able use Executive Airport with no increase in noise level.
Steve Alverson, a consultant specializing in noise, reminded the audience, “We have certain requirements that we need to follow based on the Federal Aviation Regulations. The first is that there is a noise model we are required to use called the Integrated Noise Model. We are also required, as part of the process, to use the annual average day, so we look at the entire year’s operations and put them into the model in such a way that it assumes that all those operations, averaged by 365, occur in a single average day. That’s the way the FAA and the State want us to look at aircraft noise exposure.”
He also emphasizes that the old ordinance is based on noisier aircraft. A new ordinance should take into account the quieter aircraft in the General Aviation (GA) aircraft fleet.
In summary, if the study team is to recommend a new noise ordinance, it will use a noise model acceptable to the State, the County, and the FAA. It will also forecast the future mix of aircraft in the GA fleet (both props and jets). A new noise ordinance will not favor one type of aircraft over another; it will be easy to monitor, easy to enforce, and easy to understand.
How will new data fed into a noise model affect the surrounding community? The noise consultant believes that noise levels will improve [get quieter] over time as aviation technology continues to improve. He even suggests that a noise ordinance might some day not be needed, though we’re not at that point yet.
Local noise concerns
By now, local residents have probably accepted the annual average daily aircraft noise, more or less. However, a single noisy airplanes or helicopter flying over someone’s home can ratchet-up a person’s anger a few decibels. Several members of the audience spoke about aircraft noise that stifles conversation in their backyard. Small aircraft seem to be getting louder. Can violators be identified and prosecuted? Well, no pilot has ever been arrested over a noise complaint, but yes, the County will investigate, if the noise complaint comes with date, time, and approximate location. Call 916-874-0800. It was noted that military, law enforcement, and emergency flights are exempted from the noise ordinance. The County has a web site www.sacairports.org where you can learn about airport noise. Just go to the left hand column and click on “noise.” In addition, an interesting web site www.sacramentotracks.com tracks all of the aircraft in the area on any given day. If you know the date and time of a troublesome, noisy aircraft, this web site will let you follow the offending airplane as it moves across a map of the area and in some cases give you the aircraft number, type, altitude and destination.
Master plan schedule
According to Mark McFarland of the consulting firm Barnard Dunkelberg & Company, all the components of the Executive Airport Master Plan, including noise studies and recommendations, will be available to review with the public next spring. The document will be called the Draft Final Report. Expect another Community Meeting around February 2010.
To learn more about the Executive Airport Master Plan on-line, use this link: http://www.sacairports.org/exec/planning/master_plan.html and click on “working paper3.”
E-mail Earl Rogers at reporter@valcomnews.com.
