Jackk Posted July 21 Report Posted July 21 Honestly I don’t need a golf course level landscaping, nor do I need a public works guy, dont need sprinklers, don’t even need the building. Lots of these expenses are simply not needed. Somewhere to land, somewhere to park, maybe some lights, and that’s a wrap
Pinecone Posted July 21 Report Posted July 21 On 7/18/2025 at 7:38 PM, PeteMc said: I don't think most airports are renting hangars. They do the land lease... which is only at land lease pricing. Then you build your own hangar for your plane or you build a few hangars and rent/lease them out. That's where the higher prices come from for the hangars due to the construction, taxes, etc. And I'm not saying some airports don't build their own hangars (or had a lease revision) and rent them, just that most don't. The airport I am based at has always rented hangars. As well as the local airports that I know about hangar rental. But it may be different in different areas. 1
Pinecone Posted July 21 Report Posted July 21 On 7/18/2025 at 4:20 PM, wombat said: @Pinecone At our airport, a new hangar land lease is about $1,250 or $1,300 a year (I don't know what they are after the last rate increase) and you are required to also get insurance of about $1,000 a year. At Omak (24NM away) the hangar lots are $325/year At Okanogan (21NM away) they are $300/year At Chelan (30NM away) they are $525/year So at Twisp, it's at least $1,750/year more expensive than those three places. Which isn't a huge deal in terms of aviation costs really. But out here in the boonies, considering it's 3X the price of nearby airports, people are a little bothered. The last time a hangar was built here was 2014 I think. I think our rates are too high. At the very least they should waive 1 to 5 years of lease or discount it to encourage new tenants. We've got room for way more than 100 new hangars, but there is no motivation to build. As long as there are empty lots, I think we should encourage new buildings that can be used as hangars even if they are being used for something else at the moment. Get some artists in. Some industrial. ANYTHING. If you are in the boonies, maybe just not that many customers. But seeing people talk about $100 per month for hangar rental, when a self-storage is charging that for a a 10'x10' space is nuts. And a reason why some airports have issues with people renting hangars for storage of all sorts of things, other than a plane. No, I don't like paying what I pay per month. But I know that is part of having an airport that is solvent and able to not only maintain the airport, but make it better and better.
wombat Posted July 21 Report Posted July 21 @Pinecone We don't pay $100/month hangars. We pay $200/month bare land. (lease plus mandatory insurance) and it's more like $250/month once you add property tax on top, since we pay property tax on the building. Hangars at my airport are either 40X40 or 50X50. So to be generous, let's take the 50X50 as an example... We are spending $2,000/year to rent 2,500 square feet of bare land. That's $35,000 per acre per year for land rental. With no services. No water, no sewer, no power, no internet. I paid to get sewer and power and internet to my hangar, it wasn't provided to me. And the city won't let me bring water out unless I pay for it to be brought out to everybody, at the city's standards, which is a 8" main line, at $2.5M. So that's not going to happen. I've got land I'd *LOVE* to rent for $35,000 per acre. I agree that these rental prices are nuts! We likely have one or two hangars with no aviation use going on inside. I've received complaints about this in the short time I've been an airport manager. My position on this is that as long as anyone who wants a hangar can get one, I don't care. And anybody can walk to the Twisp town hall or email them a lease request, and get a hangar lot just as good as anybody else's. So I'm not planning on doing any hangar inspections. Back to the bigger topic: Airports generally have to be part of the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) to receive federal funding. That list can be found here: https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/airports/planning_capacity/npias/current/ARP-NPIAS-2025-2029-Appendix-A.pdf Out of 20,032 airports in the United States, 3,287 are NPIAS airports. That's 16.4% of the airports that can receive federal funds. I'm just guessing here, but I'll guess that those 16.4% of the airports are very much the larger airports. And almost all of them have fuel, and FBOs, and probably every one of the 520 towered airports in the US is part of NPIAS. So a little podunk airport with no fuel, no tower, no FBO has no funding source at the national level. So if you consider a class D airport with a part-time tower to be podunk, you'd probably think that every airport has federal money. But the majority of airports do not get federal funds. But its not true by the numbers I can find. 1
EricJ Posted July 21 Report Posted July 21 3 hours ago, wombat said: I'm just guessing here, but I'll guess that those 16.4% of the airports are very much the larger airports. And almost all of them have fuel, and FBOs, and probably every one of the 520 towered airports in the US is part of NPIAS. So a little podunk airport with no fuel, no tower, no FBO has no funding source at the national level. In AZ there is a large number of private or backcountry "airports" that barely show up on sectionals, and quite a few more that don't. If fields like those are included in the overall count, it'll skew your assumptions quite a bit, which I suspect is the case. This is a very large number of wack little airports or private airports or whatever that do not have federal support. I think most small public and municipal airports would likely not exist without federal money for infrastructure, which is often a big chunk of existence expense over time.
wombat Posted July 21 Report Posted July 21 @EricJ I expect the FAA is only considering those that do show up on sectionals, but is considering all of those. I think those totally count: I keep my airplane at one of them. I tend to stop at those kinds of airports when I can on cross countries. Not sure why you consider those airports 'wack' but to me those are just regular everyday airports. Sure, I've stopped at plenty of airports that do have FAA funded infrastructure. And I'm pretty jealous of those. Giant new fuel farms. Pristine runways and ramps from the best cement. On the other hand, all of that stuff takes ongoing maintenance which the FAA won't pay for as far as I know.
EricJ Posted July 21 Report Posted July 21 40 minutes ago, wombat said: Not sure why you consider those airports 'wack' but to me those are just regular everyday airports. I didn't mean all of them are wack, but there are definitely some wack ones out there that may be being counted in the total. I suspect many of us know some like that.
Pinecone Posted July 22 Report Posted July 22 So you stop at fields with no fuel on XCs???? My home field used to be 2000 foot strip with about 20 T-hangars and fuel. They got Federal funds. It is now a much bigger, longer field with nice hangars, runway, ramps, etc. But still uncontrolled. 1
Jim Peace Posted July 23 Report Posted July 23 Vector just sent me the 4th notice of a landing fee in 2015 at SMO. I called them and told them about the statute of limitations for billing in California, which they were twice over and that they spent nearly half of the landing fee in postage to me....they said they would remove me from the list.... 2
Fly Boomer Posted July 23 Report Posted July 23 21 minutes ago, Jim Peace said: Vector just sent me the 4th notice of a landing fee in 2015 at SMO. I called them and told them about the statute of limitations for billing in California, which they were twice over and that they spent nearly half of the landing fee in postage to me....they said they would remove me from the list.... Good to know they have a well-lubricated process for canceling invoices.
kortopates Posted July 24 Report Posted July 24 Good to know they have a well-lubricated process for canceling invoices.5 years of monthly invoices to ignore - is it worth it? I just pay mine. The FAA did audit them not long ago and when they found out how the airport had become a profit center of sorts from the fees the FAA got them to drop all there hangar fee’s by 50% to balance things out. So at least we can say that supposedly it goes to airport expenses and helped the local pilots go back to more reasonable hangar fees.Still the bigger factor is that Vectors admin cost is probably higher than SMO’s take. I know we have a few SMO tenants here that know more of the details.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1
Jackk Posted July 24 Report Posted July 24 19 hours ago, Jim Peace said: Vector just sent me the 4th notice of a landing fee in 2015 at SMO. I called them and told them about the statute of limitations for billing in California, which they were twice over and that they spent nearly half of the landing fee in postage to me....they said they would remove me from the list.... You should report them Vector loves to send people “fees” funny enough so does the state of California https://portal.consumerfinance.gov/consumer/s/login/SelfRegister
Fly Boomer Posted July 24 Report Posted July 24 10 hours ago, kortopates said: 5 years of monthly invoices to ignore - is it worth it? I just pay mine. Not suggesting anyone ignore them. But if you didn't land (as some have reported), then a phone call or email seems appropriate. Maybe if they get enough "false positives", the administrative overhead will convince them to improve the algorithm that determines whether you get a bill or not. 1
Jim Peace Posted July 24 Report Posted July 24 4 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said: Not suggesting anyone ignore them. But if you didn't land (as some have reported), then a phone call or email seems appropriate. Maybe if they get enough "false positives", the administrative overhead will convince them to improve the algorithm that determines whether you get a bill or not. I dont have records that far back to know if I landed. Maybe I just flew over in the LAX special airspace and it picked me up....I would have no reason to land in SMO at any time. Also the first notice I received from this so called 2015 landing was this year....
Fly Boomer Posted July 24 Report Posted July 24 1 minute ago, Jim Peace said: I dont have records that far back to know if I landed. Maybe I just flew over in the LAX special airspace and it picked me up....I would have no reason to land in SMO at any time. Also the first notice I received from this so called 2015 landing was this year.... As with most businesses, it appears to be a "get all you can get" strategy. Unlike most businesses, they don't have to worry about what the flying community thinks. 1
kortopates Posted July 24 Report Posted July 24 Not suggesting anyone ignore them. But if you didn't land (as some have reported), then a phone call or email seems appropriate. Maybe if they get enough "false positives", the administrative overhead will convince them to improve the algorithm that determines whether you get a bill or not.I agree entirely.But i don’t think we have that problem at SMO. SMO has been using Vector to bill and collect landing fees before we had ADS/B.A student there, a long time tenant there, told me they actually bill takeoff’s rather than landings. The tower is not open 24 hrs and i am not aware of the actual mechanism but never heard of a false positive at SMO. In fact many IFR TEC routes take directly over LAX and SMO pretty low (4K) and i’ve never gotten a bill without landing there.Despite the popular belief that we have high fees in California, virtually none of our other towered airports charge landing fees besides private Catalina and recently Torrance trying to follow SMO. The exception would be our class B And C airports will get you with FBO fees as they don’t have free transient parking areas. I think most are getting by with fuel and FBO/hangar/parking fees instead.My county though just asked the FAA to de-register a popular airport servicing a state park Aqua Caliente L54 because they couldn’t afford to re-do the runway which is in dire need and the airport is as podunk as you can imagine with parking for 4 or 6 planes and nothing more so zero income - only expenses.Sad to see and hoping the FAA pushes back some if even to keep it open as a dirt runway. We have another popular dirt runway without any income as well.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1
DXB Posted August 14 Author Report Posted August 14 This bill is progress. Call your senators and congressmen to support!! https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2025/june/26/bills-to-stop-ads-b-misuse-introduced-in-congress?fbclid=IwY2xjawMK06dleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHnnOSV5pS3uM9LHhixvFaLRjs5ZgI_E7gdVH9LYu0jUTX-Dci8HS-skGp8ps_aem_AkBJlEwvsOLt9AorOFeNwA
Schllc Posted August 14 Report Posted August 14 On 7/20/2025 at 4:41 PM, 1980Mooney said: Except that your statement is neither true nor accurate. The Federal government pays ZERO, ZILCH, NADA of the operating expenses of airports - the stuff that keeps the airport lighting on, the fuel farm/tanks/trucks/pumps working, the line crew working, the runway cleared after weather, the contract tower workers working, tarmac upkeep, painting and repair etc. while you are probably technically correct, the funds they receive are more often than not fungible. I worked for an engineer who did all the electrical design for an airport while i was in college. We redesigned all the runway and exterior lighting 4 times in three years. Bureaucrats find a way.... 1
PeteMc Posted August 14 Report Posted August 14 3 hours ago, Schllc said: We redesigned all the runway and exterior lighting 4 times in three years. Can you give a little more details? Was it 4 different projects or you really tore out everything that was there and reinstalled a new system 4 times? Or were they 4 different phases to complete 1 larger project? If it was a total replacement each time, was it all paid by the FAA/Gov or were the different projects just paid by the Airport? Yeah, I get that bureaucrats often play games. But this one seems a bit out there. I'd expect them to keep funding diffrerent projects if they were just trying to dump money into the airport. 1
Schllc Posted August 14 Report Posted August 14 I was 20 at the time, and don't know how much was actually done in between designs. What I do know is that the entire airport runway environment was done and we did inspect the first one throughout the course of the project. The second and third i didn't participate inspections and don't know what happened. I was just drafting and checking other drafters work, i did do inspections on the fourth one so it was done at least twice. When i asked the firm owner why we were redoing it he said they had grant money to spend. This was around 1992-1995. They were his single biggest client until he retired in 2015. We did a lot of municipal work and all of it was haphazardly managed and no one cared about cost. They would demand stainless steel tubing and risers at 10/12 times the cost of galvanized as one example. Even though the service life of the galvanized was 30 years. look up Milton”s four ways to spend money. Goverment 1,0000,000% embraces the worst of the four. but i am not cynical at all..... sarcasm/off/ 4
wombat Posted August 21 Report Posted August 21 I just got my first ever bill from vector... From landing at Santa Monica in September 2018 in a 182 I used to own. $16.44 (Plus $0.51 credit card fee) Paid 1
hammdo Posted August 21 Report Posted August 21 Wow 7 years ago - boom pay up… not worth fighting but seriously… how do they know you didn't pay in the first place?
Hank Posted August 21 Report Posted August 21 4 hours ago, wombat said: I just got my first ever bill from vector... From landing at Santa Monica in September 2018 in a 182 I used to own. $16.44 (Plus $0.51 credit card fee) Paid I do believe that's way outside the statutes of limitations. Hiw far in the past can they bill you? Seven years is a bit laughable!
DXB Posted August 21 Author Report Posted August 21 4 hours ago, wombat said: I just got my first ever bill from vector... From landing at Santa Monica in September 2018 in a 182 I used to own. $16.44 (Plus $0.51 credit card fee) Paid I was about to say....please don't pay this. and encourage their business model. What are they gonna do? Tell the airport to put a $16 lien on a plane you no longer own?
PeteMc Posted August 22 Report Posted August 22 7 hours ago, wombat said: September 2018 I would have asked them to prove it was you. That far back there's a good chance they would not be able to. And that's really pushing the envelope UNLESS the airport charged landing fees in 2018 and you failed to pay one they sent you. I could easily see old outstanding fees being turned over to Vector to see if they could collect on them.
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