Alva Review-Courier -

Members of the Alva Airport commission have struggled to get an east-west turf runway re-installed at the Alva Regional Airport. The grass (turf) runway was accidentally dropped in the drawings presented to the FAA for approval when the new longer concrete runway was approved. The runway had existed since the beginning of the airport.

Monday night, Dale Logsdon reported that the original runway was 1,850 feet long and 170 feet wide. The board voted to accept that size, with an extra 40-foot buffer on either side of the length and an extra 200 feet on either end as safety zones. A sub committee consisting of Terry Turner and Dale Logsdon was named to work on getting prices and other information to bring back to next month's airport board meeting.

One of the problems is that the land for the proposed runway is leased for agricultural use and that lease will need to be modified. Paying the farmer back will be part of the cost of the runway.

Hangar construction began Monday on some T-hangars. Joe Don Dunham, city manager, said those hangars are bid at a lower cost than expected. If that is how it works out, money left over can be transferred for use to build the turf runway.

Visitor Eric Brewer expressed the need to get the turf runway operational as soon as possible. The airport has been experiencing a lot of high-wind days and most of the time presents a cross-wind landing hazard for beginning pilots on the north-south runway.

A brief discussion was had over a document from BancCentral regarding their collateral in financing a hangar for Terry Cline. Several board members were concerned that the contract with the bank awarded more control than they desired over airport land leased to Cline. The city attorney will be asked to take another look at the document with those concerns in mind.

New board member Kelly Parker brought up a couple of legislative bills they should look at. One, HB1681, would call for airport inspections by the state. The other board members said the feds do this already and it would likely be another operating cost, likely unneeded. Another bill Parker mentioned had been introduced in the Senate and had to do with taxes on charter aircraft.

The airport manager, Greg Murray, reported that fuel and oil sales for January totaled $12,539.79.

He also mentioned that the 100LL pump was inspected by the Corporation Commission and needs to be re-calibrated. Also, a new computer for the Jet-A pump is needed for accurate delivery. The cost for that will be around $475.

Another pending expense is the AWOS (Automatic Weather Observations) computer, which had gone into a continuous reboot cycle on Feb. 6. He said the problem recurred on the morning of the 13th. The board asked him to make haste looking for a replacement computer. It is not a consumer-quality computer, but rather costs from $5,000 to $10,000. Virtually all board members wanted that service to be operational at all times.