GREENWOOD, Ind. — Mayor Mark Myers hopes to bank off the success that the city-run airport had during the Super Bowl and get more planes to land in Greenwood on a regular basis.
He's appointed new board members and asked them to increase business at the airport near Emerson Avenue and County Line Road.
The goal is to bring in more money and more traffic, especially from jets.
Plans to move the airport are off. A $1 million plan to upgrade the runway is on. Greenwood also hopes to fast-track a proposal to lengthen the runway, but that will require the city to prove that enough jets will land at the airport.
Myers plans to keep the 230-acre airport where it is. His predecessor, Charles Henderson, had proposed moving it east, partly to open up more land for development in the growing cluster of medical offices along County Line Road.
But moving the airport would be a mistake because its location is its biggest asset, Myers said.
"The airport is 12 minutes from downtown," he said. "We're the closest and the fastest regional airport to downtown. That's our edge. If we move it, we lose that edge."
For example, the airport's location makes it ideal for attorneys who might fly into Indianapolis for business, Myers said. Taking a chartered jet might cost a few hundred dollars more than a regular plane ticket, but lawyers bill by the hour and their clients would save money if they could get in and out of Greenwood instead of waiting at Indianapolis International Airport, he said.
Myers hopes to increase the amount of jet traffic that comes into the airport, where about 130 mostly recreational planes are kept in hangars. More planes would bring in more money from fuel sales, hangar rentals and other user fees.
The airport needs to change course after failing to bring in enough income from fuel sales and other user fees to cover its expenses in recent years, Myers said. The airport got a $200,000 bailout in property tax dollars last year.
He replaced three of the four members of the board that oversees the airport and its $831,000 budget. Their terms had expired at the beginning of the year.
"I was interested in new leadership," Myers said. "I would like to see the airport move forward in a quicker manner than it has been, really see it grow."
His new members will lead efforts to attract more jet traffic and lengthen the runway from about 4,900 feet to 5,500 feet.
The runway is slated for a $1 million upgrade this fall.
Greenwood plans to repave the runway and give it grooves for added safety as part of a project that the Federal Aviation Administration approved four years ago, manager Ralph Hill said. Federal dollars will pay for 90 percent of the project, and the city is determining how it will pay for its share.
That project should help boost business at the airport because pilots feel more comfortable landing on grooved runways. The grooves drain water when it's wet, preventing planes from hydroplaning when they land.
"Planes are landing at 100 to 140 miles per hour," he said. "It's pretty important that they don't hydroplane."
A grooved runway would be noted in the guides that pilots use to find airports and could lead more pilots to consider landing in Greenwood, Hill said. A 5,000-foot-long runway also would persuade more jet pilots to take a look at Greenwood.
Many of the charter jet companies require their pilots to fly into airports with runways that are at least 5,000 feet long, Hill said.
Such planes flew into Greenwood for the Super Bowl, but the airport benefited from perfect flying weather, Hill said. Pilots are less likely to chance landing on shorter runways when the weather isn't good.
They need longer runways so they have more room to stop when it's wet out and they might skid, Hill said. Longer runways also give pilots more space to take off during the hot months, when their engines are more sluggish and the wings don't produce as much lift.
"Jet pilots have the discretion of landing on runways with less than 5,000 feet if the weather's nice, but we need a runway that long if we want consistent traffic to come in," he said.
"What happens is that there's a database of airports, and you get overlooked if there's not a 5 in front indicating 5,000 feet. If it's 2 feet short, it might as well be 2,000 feet short because all that matters is that it's 5,000 feet."
Greenwood has the land to extend the runway to as much as 5,500 feet, Hill said. The airport should extend the runway as far as it can because the longer it is, the safer it is.
"The more room on a runway, the more room pilots have to maneuver when things go wrong," Hill said. "You can never build a runway that's too long."
Greenwood hopes that the FAA will approve a longer runway in time to include it in the repaving project slated for this fall, Hill said.
First, the city must establish the need by showing that jets will take off or land at least 500 times a year, Hill said.
"They need to see that there's a need and an economic impact, not just that it would be cool," he said.
Currently, jets take off and land in Greenwood about 460 times a year. But Greenwood is trying to get more jet pilots to write letters to the FAA saying they would use the Greenwood airport more frequently if the runway were longer.
A pilot who flew in for the Super Bowl has said he would fly through Greenwood three times a month if it had a longer runway, Hill said.
With a longer runway, the airport could have 600 jet takeoffs and landings a year.
"Once you have the facilities and word of mouth spreads, you could grow exponentially," he said. "The sky's the limit."
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Information from: Daily Journal, http://www.thejournalnet.com
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