Friday, December 29, 2006

2006 was busy year at Friedman airport


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

Airport officials in 2006 opted to pay out $300,000 over 10 years to place lights on and gain access to a grove of towering cottonwood trees at the southern end of the airport runway. Photo by David N. Seelig

Outwardly, Friedman Memorial Airport is a portrait of tranquil routine: Aircraft arrive and take off; some 70,000 passengers arrive and leave; snow falls and is promptly plowed.

No yawns, please.

Behind the virtually uninterrupted clockwork of operations lies an intensity of work that few ever see, involving a rainbow of skills by a literal handful of airport staffers—engineering, construction, electronics, financial accounting, air traffic control, emergency services, safety, legal—overseen by Manager Rick Baird.

The result is that few hitches ever develop to delay aircraft operations—except Mother Nature's heavy snowfalls, which send airline passengers by bus for flights out of Twin Falls and demand round-the-clock plowing (as much as 3,500 tons per hour) to reopen the field.

Looking back over 2006, these events were among those that were notable:

- The airport decisively won an expensive lawsuit against California multimillionaire construction mogul Ronald Tutor, who sued the airport for his "constitutional" right to land his 737-size Boeing Business Jet, despite a 95,000-pound weight limit. Tutor was ordered to pay more than $150,000 in legal fees, although the airport insurer spent some $750,000 defending Friedman.

- Preliminary work began on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to determine the suitability of the site for a new $100 million airport in southern Blaine County. The EIS study could take two years. -

- Actor Bruce Willis announced he might try to build an airport in Camas County near his Soldier Mountain Ski Area, although no formal application with the Federal Aviation Administration had surfaced by year's end.

- Hope of new air service between Denver and Friedman in 2007 was fueled when Frontier Airlines announced it would expand operations to Rocky Mountain ski resorts and requested proposals for economic assistance from communities such as the Wood River Valley.

- The long-sought all-weather Transponder Landing System again did not go into operation as hoped because of technical difficulties.

- Friedman signed an agreement with owners of the Eccles property south of the airport allowing installation of solar-powered obstruction lights on towering cottonwood trees on the airport's approach corridor and access to the property for maintenance work. The Eccles family will be paid $300,000 over 10 years.

- A Boise pilot, William S. Powers, landed his Cessna 172 illegally at Friedman in April when the field was closed for construction work. The FAA revoked his license.

- Friedman was shut down twice for runway and taxiway construction and improvements, including shifting the runway southward by 600 feet. Another closing is scheduled for 2007 to replace deteriorating surfaces and sub-surfaces.

- More than $1 million was spent on improvements to Friedman's passenger terminal.

- Blaine County Commissioner Tom Bowman was sworn in as a successor to Mary Ann Mix, the county's representative on the five-member Friedman Memorial Airport Authority.

- Representatives of the Friedman family, which donated the original land for the airport early in the 20th century, have indicated a desire to work with the city of Hailey and Blaine County on public uses of some of the land if and when the airport is closed and title to the property reverts to the Friedman family.




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