By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
The revived aviation program at the Wood County Regional Airport has led to busier runways, hangar rentals and fuel sales.
But the increased use of the airport is creating the need for some updates at the facility, according to Jeff Hamons, president of the airport authority board.
And those updates require funding that the airport doesn’t have, Hamons informed the Wood County Commissioners last week. So the airport board is working on its pitch in order to secure federal funding for the updates, he said.
The airport is in need of three primary improvements. The engineering for those projects will cost $162,000 – which the airport authority already has funded.
The projects are:
- Micro-sealing of the runways, including lettering and numbering of the taxiways. The markings are quite deteriorated, especially with the increased use by the BGSU aviation program.
- Runoff areas for planes to pull off into when the runways are busy. It’s quite frequent now when there is runway congestion caused by multiple students and instructors taking off at the same time. “There’s no place to put the line-up,” Hamons said. A runoff area would give student flyers a place to pull off to work on flight prep with their instructors. Currently, the wait can be a half hour or more if there are four or more planes in line.
- Extension of the angled taxiway at the airport.
The regular airport budget pays for standard maintenance – but construction costs are out of reach, Hamons said.
The airport is working with BGSU on the projects, since the updates are needed for the aviation program.
“They need this stuff to get done,” Hamons said.
There are currently about 300 students in the aviation program. That number is expected to double in the next few years, Hamons said.
“All indications are from everybody that the program will grow,” he said.
The national pilot shortage – caused by fewer pilots retiring from military service and going into commercial flying – has created an increased demand for the BGSU program.
BGSU is planning on doubling the size of its learning center at the airport – possibly breaking ground in April or May.
“Great things are happening,” Hamons said.
The university is also working on plans for an additional hangar at the airport. So the airport authority will lose the rental from those planes moved to the new hangar. However, there are other private pilots in the area who are on a “waiting list” for the current hangar, Hamons said.
The airport authority gets an annual amount of $26,345 from the Wood County Commissioners and the same amount from the City of Bowling Green. It also gets about $40,000 a year for hangar rentals, and another estimated $75,000 from fuel sales.
The airport currently has about $400,000 in federal funding to pay for replacing the lighting system marking the runways for pilots.
But the airport board is working on its next pitch to get more funding for the three proposed updates. The goal is to have the engineering plans ready before applying for funds, since that may give the projects a better chance of funding approval.
“We’re trying to figure out what will get us noticed,” Hamons said.
He also thanked the county commissioners for their annual support. “The money is well used,” he said.
