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Grant County Commissioners heard an update from Airport Manager Steve Rice at their December 17 meeting regarding some equipment that needs to be removed from its current location at the airport to another.
The FAA has constructed a building, which Rice said is ready to go.
“They’re choosing to move a radio out of, they’re not going to house a radio here that has always been housed here, they’re going to move it to a different location for better range,” Rice explained. “So that will change the antenna that has to be put up, sounds like they didn’t have to put up as big a tower for the antenna, so that aides us a little bit on that site, too.”
The FAA needs to do that before the equipment can be moved.
“Because all that equipment has to maintain active, and they have to reactivate that some place else before they, because they can’t lose the coverage, so they have to have both, unfortunately they have to have both locations actively running before they can shut down one. They are nowhere near ready to do that.”
Rice said the building is set and ready, they are just waiting for the FAA.
“Their hangup has been this radio change that they’ve made, and they can’t seem to get on the same page there,” Rice added.
Rice said there is some Non-Directional Beacon equipment that needs to be removed.
“When you come down the highway going north out of town and you look towards the airport, there’s two big poles, they look like power poles with two wires that run across them,” Rice said. “They’re right by the beacon, the rotating beacon, they’re right there and the radio receiver for that is right there underneath those two wires, and that all can be removed.”
That has been decommissioned, and the FAA has removed it off the charts.
“It’s a navigational aid that was used for years and years and years it was used,” Rice said. “We kept it going for a long time with old extra parts and kind of piecemealed it together for as long as we possibly could.”
Commissioner John Martin said they probably don’t need to remove that until they tear down the old building that the new FAA building will replace. But Rice said the airport “Got Whacked” because the poles and wires are in the clear zone for the crossway runways by three inches.
“It is another avenue for the FAA to complain about us but it could come down at any time,” Rice said. “I would rather see it gone sooner than later just because it is an option for the FAA to complain about us.”
Rice said it would be easy to remove, and Martin said the commission would discuss it at the next department head meeting.
County clerk Sheila Brown asked Rice if he wanted to get a 1230 PAPI System as a project through the Kansas Department of Transportation. A PAPI system is an approach light system that gives pilots the proper guide slope on approach to the airport. Rice said he was not 100% sure because the ones the airport has now are fine.
“At this point in time I would say no that we don’t need to spend that type of money and do that project yet,” Rice said. “I just want to turn them on, I just want to utilize (what the airport already has). They’re there and they have not been utilized.”
Rice thought the FAA decommissioned the lights but said they did not, so he’s trying to figure out who is issuing the NOTAM to keep them out of service.
“Somebody came in and decommissioned them, they pulled the breaker and everything out of the box,” Rice said. “That was before I was the manager. But they’re ours, and we can make them work at some point (but) at this point, we can leave them off the KDOT granting side, but it might be something down the road that we think about.”
Rice said he expects the airport to be open by Dec. 30 depending on the runway lighting project. Rice said the NOTAM he issued for the airport has it closed until Jan. 10.
•The commissioners approved a bid from American Implement for a power washer for the Grant County Civic Center for $4,914.25. The commission also approved the new civic center lease agreement to allow cereal malt beverages.
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