Final FAA Hangar Rules

Goofy said:
A lot of FAA are just typical bureaucrats. Particularly the Huerta types. Most ATC are different but the managers, not as much. Have met a number of the typical and they run about 50/50 decent people to pukes. And a couple great folks. It's government, what do you expect?
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In the FAA anyway, there are only eight political appointee jobs in various leadership roles. These are known as Plumbook jobs, and the policals filling these jobs change with each new administration. For career FAA folks, these politicals are mostly tolerated, and they tend not to get involved in the details of issues too much, unless they become, um, political. Thankfully the head of Aviation Safety is not a Political Appointee, nor is Air Traffic. The head of Airports is a political appointee, mostly due to the 3 billion dollars that they dole out to airports across the country. The administrator and deputy administrator are politicals, as well as the chief council, and heads of government affairs and communications.

My experience in functional areas with aviation-related missions, the vast majority of folks who make it to FAA HQ and make policy are motivated, safety-minded folks who have a desire to make a positive difference. In my experience, the stereotypical bureaucrats tend to be in supporting staff positions such as accounting, HR, etc. Like politicals, those folks are mostly avoided when possible.

You may (or may not) be surprised to know that most folks holding inspector positions, both in the field and in HQ, have a relatively short government tenure. Some folks may have prior military experience, but quite a few have worked in industry for years and got tired of the lifestyle. They've been there and they generally get it.
 
Yup... Brad has it mostly right.;)

I still think the best thing we could do for field inspectors is take away their badges...and return their focus to safety.
 
These rules are designed to break the death-grip that many former pilots (and their families) have on too many airports.

Port Aransas (KRAS) is a perfect example. Of the 18 privately owned hangars on the field, over half are filled with boats and junk. Most of the rest are owned by out-of-town billionaires who seldom visit. Ironically, most of THEM own aircraft that are too large to go in the hangars, so they park them on the concrete slab out front. Meanwhile, two dozen locals have been on the hangar "waiting list" for many years.

These hangar owners also have control of the city manager, who influences the city council. They have repeatedly denied permission to build more hangars, which are desperately needed. I was based on the field from 2010 to 2014, renting from one of the out of town billionaires. When I publicly came out in support of construction of new hangars in Port Aransas, the guy I was renting from summarily gave me 30 days to vacate.

That was almost three years ago. The hangar has since purportedly been rented, but my friends on the airport report that there has never been a plane in it. (We have since bought a hangar at McCampbell Airport (KTFP), a thriving, healthy airport across the bay where we are extremely happy.)

If you think the State can help, you are wrong. TXDOT sent a representative in to investigate the situation here, at the request of several local pilots. This fellow was absolutely incensed by the situation, and vowed to clean up the mess. He was even interviewed by the local newspaper, where he was quoted as saying that "Port Aransas will have to start running the airport properly, as a public airport, or they will have to give back all of our grant monies."

That was a big mistake. The billionaires here didn't eff around with calling his boss. They called their politicians in Austin, the ones that they own. Those politicians then called the guy's boss's boss's boss, five levels up, and apparently told them to "Get rid of this pest you've got down here in Port Aransas."

The TXDOT guy was never heard from again. In fact, he's a guy I knew for 20 years, who stayed with us at our old hotel in Iowa. He was truly one of the good guys in aviation, a straight shooter who truly believed in general aviation. Despite this, he never returned another phone call or answered another email -- from ANY of us in town. The entire issue just disappeared from the city council agenda. I heard he recently made it to retirement, which, I'm sure, was what he was afraid of losing if he didn't clam up.

So, let's hope these FAA rules can help to drain this swamp. I'm not holding my breath.
 
Jay Honeck said:
These rules are designed to break the death-grip that many former pilots (and their families) have on too many airports.

Port Aransas (KRAS) is a perfect example. Of the 18 privately owned hangars on the field, over half are filled with boats and junk. Most of the rest are owned by out-of-town billionaires who seldom visit. Ironically, most of THEM own aircraft that are too large to go in the hangars, so they park them on the concrete slab out front. Meanwhile, two dozen locals have been on the hangar "waiting list" for many years.

These hangar owners also have control of the city manager, who influences the city council. They have repeatedly denied permission to build more hangars, which are desperately needed. I was based on the field from 2010 to 2014, renting from one of the out of town billionaires. When I publicly came out in support of construction of new hangars in Port Aransas, the guy I was renting from summarily gave me 30 days to vacate.

That was almost three years ago. The hangar has since purportedly been rented, but my friends on the airport report that there has never been a plane in it. (We have since bought a hangar at McCampbell Airport (KTFP), a thriving, healthy airport across the bay where we are extremely happy.)

If you think the State can help, you are wrong. TXDOT sent a representative in to investigate the situation here, at the request of several local pilots. This fellow was absolutely incensed by the situation, and vowed to clean up the mess. He was even interviewed by the local newspaper, where he was quoted as saying that "Port Aransas will have to start running the airport properly, as a public airport, or they will have to give back all of our grant monies."

That was a big mistake. The billionaires here didn't eff around with calling his boss. They called their politicians in Austin, the ones that they own. Those politicians then called the guy's boss's boss's boss, five levels up, and apparently told them to "Get rid of this pest you've got down here in Port Aransas."

The TXDOT guy was never heard from again. In fact, he's a guy I knew for 20 years, who stayed with us at our old hotel in Iowa. He was truly one of the good guys in aviation, a straight shooter who truly believed in general aviation. Despite this, he never returned another phone call or answered another email -- from ANY of us in town. The entire issue just disappeared from the city council agenda. I heard he recently made it to retirement, which, I'm sure, was what he was afraid of losing if he didn't clam up.

So, let's hope these FAA rules can help to drain this swamp. I'm not holding my breath.
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Checkout_my_Six said:
Yup... Brad has it mostly right.;)

I still think the best thing we could do for field inspectors is take away their badges...and return their focus to safety.
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But what good is a badge without a gun? :)

I think most GA folks would be truly surprised to see how little oversight exists over part 91 operations. The agency has shifted to a risk-based approach to oversight and enforcement, and routine ramp checks are quite rare these days. It's just not cost effective to wander up and down rows of parked planes looking for folks with expired reistrations. I bet 90% of routine ramp checks are actually OJT for new inspectors (who have to go out with an experienced ASI before they're signed off to do it on their own).

Compared to driving on state maintained roads, where I am subjected to the oversight of cops on a daily basis, the FAA gives us really long leashes. That's why I'm often amused by some of the anti-government, anti-FAA rhetoric I see here.
 
"..... I'm often amused by some of the anti-government, anti-FAA rhetoric I see here."

Yawn.....big difference between the power of a local cop and the heavy hand of a federal bureaucracy where some pencil pusher can mess you up like they did Hoover. I get a chuckle out of the apologists.....ignorant but amusing nonetheless.
 
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Brad Z said:
But what good is a badge without a gun? :)

I think most GA folks would be truly surprised to see how little oversight exists over part 91 operations. The agency has shifted to a risk-based approach to oversight and enforcement, and routine ramp checks are quite rare these days. It's just not cost effective to wander up and down rows of parked planes looking for folks with expired reistrations. I bet 90% of routine ramp checks are actually OJT for new inspectors (who have to go out with an experienced ASI before they're signed off to do it on their own).

Compared to driving on state maintained roads, where I am subjected to the oversight of cops on a daily basis, the FAA gives us really long leashes. That's why I'm often amused by some of the anti-government, anti-FAA rhetoric I see here.
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I'm amused by it as well. Basically it is either the clueless or the inherently anti-government rebel without a cause type.
 
:lol:........:stirpot:

Let's just say...I've written a few of those SMS RBDM documents.
 
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Well, this FAA crap just hit the fan here in Shreveport; We were told by the Shreveport Airport Authority that (among other things) all the new ground leases will have an end date at which time the hangars we bought,paid for, purchased and maintain will become property of the City of Shreveport. When we inquired as to what we would be paid for the "improvements" on the leases we were told the improvements would revert to ownership of the City.
Basically the worth of my two hangars just went to zero $; who in their right mind would buy a hangar at DTN when at the end of your 10, 15 or 20 year ground lease your investment would be confiscated by the City?

This can't be what the FAA really intended...Right?

Chris in Shreveport
 
Hiperbiper said:
Well, this FAA crap just hit the fan here in Shreveport; We were told by the Shreveport Airport Authority that (among other things) all the new ground leases will have an end date at which time the hangars we bought,paid for, purchased and maintain will become property of the City of Shreveport. When we inquired as to what we would be paid for the "improvements" on the leases we were told the improvements would revert to ownership of the City.
Basically the worth of my two hangars just went to zero $; who in their right mind would buy a hangar at DTN when at the end of your 10, 15 or 20 year ground lease your investment would be confiscated by the City?

This can't be what the FAA really intended...Right?

Chris in Shreveport
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What did the lease say when you built the hangar?
 
Hiperbiper said:
Well, this FAA crap just hit the fan here in Shreveport; We were told by the Shreveport Airport Authority that (among other things) all the new ground leases will have an end date at which time the hangars we bought,paid for, purchased and maintain will become property of the City of Shreveport. When we inquired as to what we would be paid for the "improvements" on the leases we were told the improvements would revert to ownership of the City.
Basically the worth of my two hangars just went to zero $; who in their right mind would buy a hangar at DTN when at the end of your 10, 15 or 20 year ground lease your investment would be confiscated by the City?

This can't be what the FAA really intended...Right?

Chris in Shreveport
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In my admittedly limited experience, that's what typically happens at the 20 year point (unless you can negotiate an extension).
 
Our leases all include a similar provision. We typically do 50 year leases, with a provision at the end of the lease that the lessee either remove the building at the termination of the lease, or at the option of the lessor leave the building and turn it over to the airport. Now in practice usually a new lease is negotiated, as we feel it is in everyone's interest to leave things the way they are, but your mileage may vary. As the airport, I don't want to take over a 50 year old building, that likely was neglected in the later part of its life because they knew it was getting turned over.
 
Well either renegotiate the lease or take the building down and leave it like you found it.
 
I leased a Camry a few years back and put a $10k professional paint job on it, put $8000 into the engine and another $8k on a racing suspension, and when I turned it in at the end of the lease they wouldn't give me a dime for all those improvements I did!

Ok, that didn't happen, just making a point.
 
We have an airport here in town. Private / public access / wanna-be airpark sorta, that has, I would guess, 30% of the hangars rented to auto body shops, hail dent repair, etc. ****es me off when there are guys with actual AIRPLANES on waiting lists to get a hangar. Want to run a body shop? Go rent in an industrial district like everybody else!
 
Salty said:
I leased a Camry a few years back and put a $10k professional paint job on it, put $8000 into the engine and another $8k on a racing suspension, and when I turned it in at the end of the lease they wouldn't give me a dime for all those improvements I did!

Ok, that didn't happen, just making a point.
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LOL, good example, when I first started reading that I thought who in the heck would do that....
 
Yea pretty common practice now that the airport gets your hangar after 20 years or so. Just a tax write off for big businesses.
 
JCranford said:
We have an airport here in town. Private / public access / wanna-be airpark sorta, that has, I would guess, 30% of the hangars rented to auto body shops, hail dent repair, etc. ****es me off when there are guys with actual AIRPLANES on waiting lists to get a hangar. Want to run a body shop? Go rent in an industrial district like everybody else!
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And that is the reason for the grant assurances from the FAA. If the airport is receiving federal money to be an airport, they want it to be an airport and not an industrial park, mini-storage, etc.
 
Hiperbiper said:
Well, this FAA crap just hit the fan here in Shreveport; We were told by the Shreveport Airport Authority that (among other things) all the new ground leases will have an end date at which time the hangars we bought,paid for, purchased and maintain will become property of the City of Shreveport. When we inquired as to what we would be paid for the "improvements" on the leases we were told the improvements would revert to ownership of the City.
Basically the worth of my two hangars just went to zero $; who in their right mind would buy a hangar at DTN when at the end of your 10, 15 or 20 year ground lease your investment would be confiscated by the City?

This can't be what the FAA really intended...Right?

Chris in Shreveport
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If your original lease did not have an ownership transfer provision, I would engage an attorney before you signed a new lease.
 
Hiperbiper said:
Well, this FAA crap just hit the fan here in Shreveport; We were told by the Shreveport Airport Authority that (among other things) all the new ground leases will have an end date at which time the hangars we bought,paid for, purchased and maintain will become property of the City of Shreveport. When we inquired as to what we would be paid for the "improvements" on the leases we were told the improvements would revert to ownership of the City.
Basically the worth of my two hangars just went to zero $; who in their right mind would buy a hangar at DTN when at the end of your 10, 15 or 20 year ground lease your investment would be confiscated by the City?

This can't be what the FAA really intended...Right?

Chris in Shreveport
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Uggh - that's how every ground lease I've ever seen works
 
Jay Honeck said:
These rules are designed to break the death-grip that many former pilots (and their families) have on too many airports.

Port Aransas (KRAS) is a perfect example. Of the 18 privately owned hangars on the field, over half are filled with boats and junk. Most of the rest are owned by out-of-town billionaires who seldom visit. Ironically, most of THEM own aircraft that are too large to go in the hangars, so they park them on the concrete slab out front. Meanwhile, two dozen locals have been on the hangar "waiting list" for many years.

These hangar owners also have control of the city manager, who influences the city council. They have repeatedly denied permission to build more hangars, which are desperately needed. I was based on the field from 2010 to 2014, renting from one of the out of town billionaires. When I publicly came out in support of construction of new hangars in Port Aransas, the guy I was renting from summarily gave me 30 days to vacate.

That was almost three years ago. The hangar has since purportedly been rented, but my friends on the airport report that there has never been a plane in it. (We have since bought a hangar at McCampbell Airport (KTFP), a thriving, healthy airport across the bay where we are extremely happy.)

If you think the State can help, you are wrong. TXDOT sent a representative in to investigate the situation here, at the request of several local pilots. This fellow was absolutely incensed by the situation, and vowed to clean up the mess. He was even interviewed by the local newspaper, where he was quoted as saying that "Port Aransas will have to start running the airport properly, as a public airport, or they will have to give back all of our grant monies."

That was a big mistake. The billionaires here didn't eff around with calling his boss. They called their politicians in Austin, the ones that they own. Those politicians then called the guy's boss's boss's boss, five levels up, and apparently told them to "Get rid of this pest you've got down here in Port Aransas."

The TXDOT guy was never heard from again. In fact, he's a guy I knew for 20 years, who stayed with us at our old hotel in Iowa. He was truly one of the good guys in aviation, a straight shooter who truly believed in general aviation. Despite this, he never returned another phone call or answered another email -- from ANY of us in town. The entire issue just disappeared from the city council agenda. I heard he recently made it to retirement, which, I'm sure, was what he was afraid of losing if he didn't clam up.

So, let's hope these FAA rules can help to drain this swamp. I'm not holding my breath.
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Jay - you've shared versions of this multiple times, all with contempt for the "out of town billionaires". You do realize that through their property holdings on the island, they are paying a significant amount of the county's budget for operations, not to mention school's, fire/ems, etc.? They have rights and opportunities to exercise their influence just as much as you do.
 
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Grum.Man said:
Yea pretty common practice now that the airport gets your hangar after 20 years or so. Just a tax write off for big businesses.
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Not uncommon in any form of property lease. Leasehold improvements belong to the property owner at the end of the lease, no compensation.
 
rsleeds said:
Jay - you've shared versions of this multiple times, all with contempt for the "out of town billionaires". You do realize that through their property holdings on the island, they are paying a significant amount of the county's budget for operations, not to mention school's, fire/ems, etc.? They have rights and opportunities to exercise their influence just as much as you do.
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lol Except that the out of town investors have bought up all available housing and converted it into short term rentals. Many islanders have thus been driven off the island, with housing prices skyrocketing, which is killing the school, churches, and civic organizations.

Drive through Port A on a Wednesday night in October. Where families lived just 7 years ago, all you will see is empty, dark houses.

The good news is that the trend seems to be coming to an end, as there's not much left to buy/convert. The bad news is that they plan to build a new subdivision of 1,000 new houses (in a town of just 3,500 people!), which, if everything follows the pattern, will all be short term rentals, too.

We now rarely find employees who can afford to live here. The island has completely changed in the 7 years we have lived here.

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk
 
Jay Honeck said:
lol Except that the out of town investors have bought up all available housing and converted it into short term rentals. Many islanders have thus been driven off the island, with housing prices skyrocketing, which is killing the school, churches, and civic organizations.

Drive through Port A on a Wednesday night in October. Where families lived just 7 years ago, all you will see is empty, dark houses.

The good news is that the trend seems to be coming to an end, as there's not much left to buy/convert. The bad news is that they plan to build a new subdivision of 1,000 new houses (in a town of just 3,500 people!), which, if everything follows the pattern, will all be short term rentals, too.

We now rarely find employees who can afford to live here. The island has completely changed in the 7 years we have lived here.

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk
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Understand your viewpoint, but others might call the same thing progress. Thus is the evolution and gentrification of towns/villages. Not unique to Port Aransas.

You can't get people in AP to take the ferry and come work on the Island?
 
rsleeds said:
Understand your viewpoint, but others might call the same thing progress. Thus is the evolution and gentrification of towns/villages. Not unique to Port Aransas.

You can't get people in AP to take the ferry and come work on the Island?
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Yeah, we used to get a fair number of employees from the mainland, where housing is cheap.

Then, they would get stuck in a 2-hour line to board the ferry. After this happens a few times, even the dimmest bulb soon realizes that their service industry job isn't paying enough to justify the time and gas.

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk
 
I know this will stir the pot, but the FAA should prevent experimental builders and aircraft in mothball from renting hangars. If you have a plane that is flying, it should go.
 
There must be something stopping the free market here. If I were an airport admin that had no available hangars and a waiting list, I would keep jacking the prices until I either had vacancies or made enough money to build more hangars.
 
Salty said:
There must be something stopping the free market here. If I were an airport admin that had no available hangars and a waiting list, I would keep jacking the prices until I either had vacancies or made enough money to build more hangars.
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One word, politics. Airport management jobs are usually government, and can be heavily influenced by local politics. Mess with the wrong person, you may be asked to find employment elsewhere.
 
Every couple of years I get a letter saying I can't store my lawn tractor or my pool ladder in my hangar and every year I tell them the lawn tractor is converted to tow the plane to the wash rack and the ladder is used to wash my high wing airplane. They usually reply with OK and we do it again in a couple of years.
 
Salty said:
I leased a Camry a few years back and put a $10k professional paint job on it, put $8000 into the engine and another $8k on a racing suspension, and when I turned it in at the end of the lease they wouldn't give me a dime for all those improvements I did!

Ok, that didn't happen, just making a point.
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We all know that couldn't possibly be true, because the Camry is the world's most boring automobile.

Come to think of it, building a Camry into a "sleeper" would kinda be hilarious, though...
 
Salty said:
There must be something stopping the free market here. If I were an airport admin that had no available hangars and a waiting list, I would keep jacking the prices until I either had vacancies or made enough money to build more hangars.
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If only it were that easy...my home city owned field has a 3-5 year wait list, room for more hangars and the demand to fill them, I believe even plans for said new hangars and airport manager that wants them...but due to city creative financing that burdens the airport with paper debt, the environmentalist, and straight up politics they will never get built even though they would easily pay for themselves and ultimately be a financial gain in a short time for the city.

...and no need to screw over current tenants and jack up prices.

Government at work.
 
cgrab said:
Every couple of years I get a letter saying I can't store my lawn tractor or my pool ladder in my hangar and every year I tell them the lawn tractor is converted to tow the plane to the wash rack and the ladder is used to wash my high wing airplane. They usually reply with OK and we do it again in a couple of years.
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But this is good. The airport operator is actually looking out for the interests of pilots by ensuring the hangars are being used for airplanes.
 
Salty said:
There must be something stopping the free market here. If I were an airport admin that had no available hangars and a waiting list, I would keep jacking the prices until I either had vacancies or made enough money to build more hangars.
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Or you could do what our airport manager does at our non-federally obligated airport: When a hangar comes up for rent, he puts the hangar on eBay and auctions the monthly rate. As long as you're willing to pay more than everyone else waiting, you're always next. As a consumer I don't particularly care for this practice but he's got a business to run, and airports near a major city aren't cheap to operate.
 
3393RP said:
But this is good. The airport operator is actually looking out for the interests of pilots by ensuring the hangars are being used for airplanes.
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Why is it a problem if a hangar is used for storing things in addition to an airplane?
 
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