===  New Field Progress Report # 2  ===

With the concerns stated at the end of Report #1, Bill Womble telephoned Mr. Ivy Owen for an appointment to meet with the FMAC New Field Committee.   (It had been decided during the first meeting that we would get together again after the Club had time to make some decisions.)   A meeting was set for Tuesday morning, October 6, 2009 at 9:00 AM. Those present at the meeting were Mr. Ivy Owen, the Executive Director of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority, and a member of the "Chaffee Crossing Land Development Board", and Mr. Larry Evans, Director of Operations for the Chaffee Crossing Land Development Project, Ron Roberts and Bill Womble.

After a warm and cordial reception we got down to business.   Ron had brought his laptop with the PowerPoint Presentation that was made to club members during the September meeting.   The purpose of bringing that presentation was to discuss not only the concerns mentioned during the club meeting, but to be able to point out the specific area of the property in which we were interested and to display in graphic terms, the size of the piece of land that our hobby needs, as well as the over-fly areas.

I believe both Mr. Owen and Mr. Evans were impressed with both the amount of preparation and the progress that we had made on our end.   After talking a bit about our safety concerns and showing them the AMA minimum recommendations for safe flying, as well as the AMA's suggested field layout including safety fencing, spectator areas, pit area, runways, over flight area and parking, they began to realize that we needed more than just a "few acres" in which to build a flying field.   The plot of land that we had been talking with them about, the 1100 by 3600 area, comes out to about 90 acres!   They were somewhat surprised that we needed that much, but did not appear to be overly concerned.

We told them that we really did not need 90 acres of cleared land for our use, in fact our present field (shown on the right) has only about 28 acres of "immediate area", but that we did need to have the right to over-fly the surrounding area of the cleared land that we would be using.   We came to a mutual agreement that about 30 acres is what we would need cleared.   They both thought, and the committee agreed, that if we were to receive 30 acres as "ours", we could "share" the surrounding areas as long as the use of the surrounding areas would not present a safety issue and would allow entrance to retrieve downed aircraft.

With those discussions out of the way, we proceeded to voice our concerns about the "100 year flood plane".   Both of them were surprised to hear that.   To the best of their knowledge the entire area is NOT within the 100 year flood plane.   They were, and are, planning business, commercial and housing areas within that same elevation plane of less than 12 inches of elevation difference from the property we are hoping to gain the use of.   Mr. Owen is going to check on that and contact Bill once he finds the answer.   We did talk a little about "just in case" it turns out that the land is within the 100 year flood plane, which we thought might still be a "doable" thing if we raised the level of the pad for the shelter and any buildings constructed.

We then told Mr. Owen and Mr. Evans that several members of the club were ex-military and had experience driving bulldozers and other heavy equipment, and that we would be willing to supply the "man hours" if we could gain access to the equipment needed to remove the trees, level and roll the ground and put up fencing.

We discussed the use of the existing gravel roads for access to the property and that was not a problem with them.   In fact, should the commercial development of the area near the two ponds become a reality, the gravel roads would be paved by the county!

It appears that there may be (most likely will be) a "nature trail" (yellow dotted line in the slide at left) kind of winding among the trees left to grow, which would be on the extreme Western part of the 90 acre plot.   We assured them that would not be a problem because we would rarely fly that far out and even if we did, and if the airplane were to crash into the trees, the trees would naturally protect anyone on the trail.   Besides, that trail would be well outside of the 2500 feet required by the AMA for safety reasons.

So what it all boils down to is...   the only hold up might be the "100 year flood plane" thing and whether we would be willing to take the land even if was in the flood plane.   As has been mentioned several times before, both Mr. Evans and Mr. Owen believe that we would be an asset to the Chaffee Crossing area.   The land has been designated as a "Park and Recreation" area, and an "Airpark" (whether public or private) would fit nicely into that designation.   They further believe that the high number of visitors and pilots we have during the year at our events, would spend some money in that area and would talk about the area.   They really want us there!

OK!    So if we can agree on the land, how much will all this cost?

Let me review some of the discussions between the committee and Mr. Owen that involved money:

1. In the first meeting, Ron voiced his doubts that the club would be able to pay very much in the way of a lease or rental agreement.   Ron mentioned that we were a "non-profit" organization with about 60 members, only about 40 or so whom were really active, and that after paying the expenses necessary for grass mowing, upkeep, porta-potty rental, needed sanction fees and charter fees, there was very little left.
2. To Ron's statement, Mr. Owen replied, "I kind of expected that, most people who come to them asking for land don't have much money."   He then mentioned that they were getting $250 per month from a "hunting club" for the use of the land North of the River.   Ron remarked that $250 per month would be prohibitive for us.
3. Mr. Owen looked over at Mr. Evans and then remarked, "we will work it out"!

Then, at this latest meeting on October 6th, Mr. Owen summarized that we needed 30 acres of land cleared and the right to over-fly another 30 to 60 acres.   He will check on the flood plane, see if he can make some arrangements to get the 30 acres cleared, and would offer us a "long-term lease" with the option of donating the land to the club at the end of the lease!   We didn't talk about the cost of the lease, but it is the committee's opinion that it will be minimal.

Mr. Owen then asked how much of our own money were we putting up?   We responded that we had about $7000 to $8000 and could possibly get another $1000 from an AMA grant.   He stated to the committee that if we were willing to put at least $8000.00 of our own money into the project, and were willing to provide the "sweat equity", he was pretty sure he could get the board of directors to go along!

And that is where we stand at the present time...

There was some discussion at the club meeting last Sunday, whether 30 acres would be enough.   The picture on the left is our current field with our flying restrictions drawn in Red.   The area contained within the Red lines at our present field figures out to about 28 - 30 Acres, depending on how far on the South of Treece Road we fly.

On the Right is the property we are talking about at Chaffee Crossing.   The area contained within the Red lines is 30 Acres.

Obviously, there would be plenty of "over-fly" area in the three directions to the North, West (up to 2500 feet beyond the cleared area) and East.   Naturally we could not over fly the pit area, but we could over-fly enough South to make a turn onto final for a cross-wind runway if we orient the main runway East - West and have the pits and shelter area on the South side of the main runway.

We could also leave some of the trees between the cleared area and the old road that runs East-West to the South for privacy, shade and picnicing.   But there are two other considerations we must realize:

• With a 30 acre cleared area surrounded by trees, we would need to be especially careful about the tree lines.   Speaking from experience, trees are pretty un-yielding when it comes to airplanes!



• Where presently we only take care of about 5 Acres, both runways and pit areas, should all of this come to pass, we would be responsible for not only mowing the runway and pit areas, but brush hogging the entire 30 acres as well!