Cambridge Airport Update

“The airport is an asset to this area that is needed if we are to grow economically,” said Terry Losego to the Cambridge Lions Club. “We have over five hundred corporate operations (take offs or landings) every year.” Losego is the Cambridge Municipal Airport manager. “We recently had a meeting with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration),” Losego said. “We met with the county commissioners, mayor Tom Orr, and Norm Blanchard of the Community Improvement Corporation to go over the airport’s ten year capital improvement plan.” “We have projects worth over one point five million dollars from three grants to lengthen the runway,” Losego said. “I did two years of research with pilots asking them what was needed to improve the airport. I had them fill out survey forms. The length of the runway was a big concern.” “Extending the runway allows pilots to take off with a full load of fuel. With a shorter runway they may have to take off with less fuel and then have to refuel at another airport. It is also a safety issue since they need a longer runway when it is wet or when it’s icy.” “We are using the grants to fill in the area between the end of the runway and route 209. This week we are pouring footers for two hundred fifty feet of concrete to span the ditch to improve the safety area at the end of the runway.” “We will also be removing trees on the opposite side of route 209 because they have grown into the flight path,” Losego said. “We are in the process of designing the specifications to fill cracks in the runway to determine what type and how much of a patch is needed. This will be a forty seven thousand dollar project.” “For 2009 we will be receiving a thirty seven thousand dollar grant from the FAA to replace strobe lights at the end of the runways. The ones we have are obsolete. The new lights are needed for instrument landings.” “Our weather system is obsolete and needs to be replaced,” Losego said. “I managed to get a used system from Athens and have been using parts from it to maintain ours. We can’t get new parts anymore.” “The FAA recommends that we have taxi ways so that we won’t have any runway incursions. They don’t want us to have an airplane or a maintenance truck on the runway when another plane is getting ready to land.” There are twenty single engine airplanes and one jet based at the Cambridge airport. There is an average of one hundred sixteen aircraft operations per week. Sixty seven percent of these are local general aviation and twenty five percent are transient. Seven percent are for air taxi service and one percent is military.