Vermont Aviation

As noted in the For Sale section, several hangars are available at EFK. Here's a link to just one of them, the least expensive of those listed. https://www.vermontaviation.com/classifieds/48'-wide-x-36'-deep-hangar-for-sale-at-efk/

This "Cabin Fever 2025" was a very nice event and it was fun to come out of hibernation for a while. Thank you to Chris Chicoine of VAA for putting it all together.


Here's a little "plane porn" to get you through the remaining winter month or two. It is from a fly-in last week at Aero Acres (X07) in FL. Some people have a very different winter experience than we do up here. Roger Brown of the "Old Farts" group manages to arrange an entire season of weekly fly-ins in and around FL. It is only about 3 or 4 minutes long, but it might get the blood circulating once again! Join them if you want to see their newletters and photos. 


https://oldfartsfc.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c4993321b97ea47e644911b20&id=df4987f553&e=ceb25b8509

Apologies for the short notice. The weather looks tolerable for the meeting from this point, only a few days away. Meet in current FBO "lounge".
 
The proposed agenda is as follows:
1. Introduction of attendees
2. Review of "new" terminal status
3. Update on statewide grassroots aviation / aeronautics organization efforts
4. Comments re: VTrans re-org
5. Next up - re-imagining the VAAC
6. Suggestions and input on 2025 events both at EFK and neighboring airports
7. Update on Supreme Court decision re: lease rate increase
8. Set date for future meetings to follow up on agenda outcome & goals
Optional
9. VFR Club (optional): topic of discussion tbd
 
Dial-in number:
(425) 436-6343
View list of international dial-in numbers Buy Toll-free.
Access code: 802323
Press the # sign after entering your access code

As most of you know, both Evan Robinson (new "director" of the reconstituted Vermont Aviation division), and Mike Sturges (his assistant, not sure of titles yet), are both now officially on board at VTrans. We've had the pleasure of meeting Mike at our recent NEKIAC meeting at Newport a week ago. Great first impressions. Great start.

In a more recent bit of news, Rollin Tebbetts, State Airport Operations & Maintenance Manager, has resigned, effective at the end of December 2024.

Things are changing...

Minutes from this meeting
Attendees, in-person: Scott Winick, Dan Gauvin, Zach Gauvin, Mike Caffrey, Ron Horton, Mike Sturges, Paul Monette, Alain Lucier, Jake Swanson, Devin Julia
Attendees, call-in: Heather McKeown, Bruce Macfarlane
Attendees, proxy: Bill Stenger, Jim Sullivan

Convened at 5:02PM.

Introduction of attendees.

Minutes from 11-19-2024 reviewed and approved.

Ron H: Motion (via printed handout and read to attendees) to change nomenclature of current positions of Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary to President, Treasurer/VP, Secretary to facilitate 501(c)(3) requirements, 1 year term, aviation qualifications to hold position, additional officers, advisory members of committees, as needed. Unanimously approved.
Elections  (all positions were nominated, seconded and unanimously elected)
President: Scott W
Treasurer / VP: Dan G
Secretary: Paul M

Scott W: Thanks to former officers (Linda S, Matt M) for their service in the prior year.

Introduction and welcome to Mike Sturges
Retired AA captain, a ton of GA flying experience as well, not currently an aircraft owner, home base is nominally FSO, long time friend / neighbor of Secretary of Transportation Joe Flynn, assistant to the incoming head of the reconstituted aviation division Evan Robinson, intends to provide the aviation sensitive “guardrails” to help Evan navigate and stablish new relationships with the aviation constituents and stakeholders in Vermont. We all enthusiastically welcome both Mike and Evan!

Changes at VTrans (see above)

General agreement to let Mike and Evan get their feet on the ground before inundating them with specific issues
Most, if not all, issues have been collected and collated in the Hot Topics sections of the VermontAviation.com Chat Board
Mike S is keeping track of that board and those issues.

Online information access and comments
New sites seem OK
Remind everyone they must go to the Board or Topic in which they're interested, and select the "Notify" button in order to get emails automatically when new items occur.
Everyone is allowed to "see" those Boards and Topics if they visit the Chat Board, but they will not get notifications of new items unless they select "Notify".

New terminal status after the 30 day bid process from 10-15-2024 - 11-15-2024.
Low bidder was nearly 40% higher than the amount available ($1.3M v. $950K).
At this cost, and if "on budget", this represents a cost of more than $700/sq. ft. for the space.
Alain L: Make an unsolicited proposal based on our previous proposal to renovate the old hangar building next door.
Scott W., Dan G., Paul M will try to dig through the archives to find all that material. Bill S. may have some of it, too.

No new news on RWY 18 approach timing, but Mike S took note of this issue and will see what he can find out.
At FSO they were able to bring forward the timing of a runway / approach lighting issue, so perhaps they can do the same for approval of LNAV GPS 18.

No news on CBP issue.

No news on pending Supreme Court decision re Hangar Owners v. VTrans.

Re-imagining the VAAC - next steps? Attend VAAC meeting January 7 2025 if possible. In person and virtual attendance is available. Details are posted on Chat Board.

Try to support Young Eagles with some pilots and planes at FSO this spring / early summer.

No meeting in January 2025.

Next meeting February 3 2025 will be a brief meeting followed by Mid-Winter - POT LUCK DINNER! Spouses welcome. Details to follow.

Meeting adjourned at 6:10PM.

Followed by a lively and entertaining VFR Club meeting, hosted by Devin Julia, CFI/CFII. Topic was: What are your "go to" tools for planning a long VFR trip?
Biggest take-away for me: Get back into the habit of calling for a live wx briefing with an FAA wx expert in addition to all your other planning tools! Since the advent of Foreflight weather briefing data dumps, I'd stopped doing that at all. Thanks Devin! I'll post a selection of topics for the next meeting and we can "vote" on which one we'd like to cover. Plenty of ideas to choose from. It was really fun to hear everyone's perspectives on this first topic.

I really like the Around the Mountain in 80 Days idea! Here are some more suggestions for your consideration around this event.
  1. Consider two levels of participation - one for only paved airports and the other is paved airports PLUS a number of Vermont's wonderful grass strips.
  2. Consider rewarding every participant who completes either level with a really cool t-shirt, like the last one!
  3. The concept of a single winner who is the FIRST to complete either level might incentivize one to fly in less than safe conditions. Not what we want. Therefore let's reward everyone who completes the task within the allotted timeframe (80 days?) with a cool t-shirt and come up with a special prize for some other criteria. I have some ideas for those criteria (see below). The prize could be a special trophy that the winner gets to keep at their home airport FBO for the year.
  4. Special prize winner ideas.
      a. We can stick with a prize for the one who finishes it first, but I think that might be incentivizing questionable decisions.
      b. How about if the winner is the home airport of a team of winners. The winner could be the airport with the most aircraft that complete the larger list of ALL Vermont airports, including grass. That way, it would incentivize teams to include taildraggers / grass capable aircraft as well as fancy fast flyers. Obviously airports with more airplanes based there are favored in this competition, so we need a way of equalizing that. What about calculating participation factor, i.e., number of planes from a home airport that complete the task divided by the total number of airplanes based at that home airport? That way, an airport with 100 planes based there and 10 complete the task, (10/100 = .1 or 10%), is on an even footing with a small airport with 10 airplanes based there and 1 that completes the task (1/10=.1 or 10%). The airport with the highest percentage of planes completing the task wins the right to keep the trophy for the year at their FBO.
      c. Some other ideas?

Hello Friends of NEKIAC –

The proposed agenda is as follows:
1. Introduction of attendees
2. Update on statewide grassroots aviation / aeronautics organization efforts
3. Review and prioritize EFK issues to tackle in 2025
4. Update on Supreme Court decision re: lease rate increase
5. Select officers for 2025
6. Set date for future meetings to follow up on agenda outcome & goals.

There’s plenty of room in the old Parker Pie building if you can fit this late-afternoon meeting into your schedule.
If it is a smaller group, we’ll revert to the Lakeview FBO building.
Bring your questions, your enthusiasm for the region and our airport.
Looking forward to seeing you there.