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Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 
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Copyright © 2003 Express Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 


Friday — April 9, 2004

News

Jet owner has to pay airport legal fees

‘Hush kit’ available for older Stage II jets


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

The California multimillionaire who sued and failed to force Hailey’s Friedman Memorial Airport to allow his overweight, oversized luxury jet to operate there was ordered Tuesday to pay $159,038 in lawsuit fees to the airport.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill filed papers in Boise on Tuesday, April 6, instructing Ronald Tutor to pay $88,094 in attorney fees and $70,994 for associated costs. The judge, however, denied the airport’s claim for expert witness fees.

The $159,038 eventually will go to the airport’s insurance carrier, Royal & Sun Alliance, which has already covered $600,000 in legal costs incurred fighting the Tutor litigation. The airport’s insurance policy covers up to $1 million in costs.

After airport authority attorney Barry Luboviski announced Winmill’s order at the regular monthly meeting of the airport governing board, a clearly jubilant airport manager Rick Baird said, "This makes my day."

However, more legal costs lie ahead. Tutor has ordered his California attorneys, Bailey and Partners, of Santa Monica, to appeal Judge Winmill’s February decision rejecting Tutor’s claim that his constitutional rights to travel had been violated by the airport’s aircraft weight limit of 95,000 pounds.

Luboviski told the board that Winmill’s award of fees "bodes well" for the airport in Tutor’s appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Tutor, CEO of Tutor-Saliba Corp. of Sylmar, Calif., and who has a vacation home north of Ketchum, owns a plush 737-sized Boeing Business Jet as well as a smaller Gulfstream III jet, the latter that he has used for commuting to Idaho.

The larger of the two jets weighs some 171,000 pounds on take off and more than 100,000 pounds on landing. The Gulfstream is well below Friedman’s weight limit.

Winmill ruled that Tutor might have suffered an inconvenience by the Hailey airport weight rules, but no violation of his rights.

Other airport authority business matters at the monthly meeting included:

  • Baird reported that more older Stage II jets with noisier engines are showing up at the airport outfitted with what is known as a "hush kit"—a large noise suppressor attached to the rear of jet engines that looks like a large can. The retrofit hush kit can cost upwards of $1.5 million, noted board member Dr. Ron Fairfax, who is a general aviation pilot. Baird said the airport routinely writes a letter of appreciation to owners of jets with the noise suppressor retrofits.

     
  • Some disagreement has developed between Federal Aviation Administration officials in Washington and FAA technicians in the field over whether the new Transponder Landing System at Friedman is operationally acceptable, Baird reported. The FAA rule is that TLS systems may only operate with a 3 degree offset—that is, approaching aircraft can be only 3 degrees off center. But Baird said the Friedman TLS would allow pilots to be 10 degrees off center because of the nature of the approach procedure between surrounding terrain. Baird said he’s optimistic that the 10-degree offset will be eventually approved.

     
  • The board was briefed by Mead & Hunt consultant Tom Schnetzer on $15.1 million in long-range renovations and improvements at the airport that normally would be 95 percent funded by the FAA, with 5 percent in local funds. An exception would be costs of an expanded terminal parking lot, which would be 100 percent funded locally. But Schnetzer hinted that because of tighter federal budgets, the airport authority might want to "push every (political) button you can" in Washington to make sure the funds are available. Some airports have had their funds included in congressional appropriations legislation, rather than relying exclusively on FAA budget decisions.


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The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.





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