FAA Compliance Hangar Inspection Juneau, Alaska

[Jon Ahlgren]

A little more into: My 20 year lease was recorded November 1, 2002. In the 23 pages of the lease Article 4.1 states "The Lessee shall occupy and use the Leased Premises for the purpose of storing private aircraft." More than done! The rest is about other things like insurance, maintenance etc.. Juneau is located in a marine, salt air, temperate rain forest, so controled environment storage is important for the preservation of anything. What is wrong with personal posessions using unocupied space around the aircraft? The primary use is, by far, for aviation.

[Bill Greenwood]

I don't know the specifics of this location or of this case, but at many airports there is some cost or subsidy provided by taxpayer money and it is done for the specific purpose of making a place for airplanes. If there is no regulation or supervision of the use of the hangar, then people often will take advantage of the situation and use the below market price and use it for non aviation items. It might be one thing to have motorcycle, perhaps one used at the airport.
But putting a full size RV vehicle in there is certainly not an aviation use.

[Louis]

Just curious, what happened to Glendale AZ? I guess as long as we're dependent on Federal funds for airports, we're going to be stuck with whatever rules they decide to throw at us. Increased security is a real drag. Last time I went to Merrill Field it really made me sad, fences everywhere. The East Ramp here in Fairbanks is still reasonably accessible and friendly, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changes. Of course the State of Ak owns the airport property and enforces the rules. I've noticed vastly different standards between various state airports. When I was in Kotzebue the air taxi I was working for was ordered by the airport manager to remove a sofa from the office which happened to be a hide a bed, but one only has to make a quick drive down the East Ramp here at FAI to see blatant non-aviation use of airport property. I'm not the Juneau airport manager, but I can't see how they could reasonably accuse you of non-aviation use of your facility. Good luck.....P.s. What plane are you building?

The FAA knocked on my hangar door yesterday Dec. 12, came in and took several pictures. Attached is what he saw: my two Cessnas (current annuals), my mostly complete experimental project, and other stuff. I own the hangar (40' x 60') and lease the land.

Juneau International is undergoing a compliance inspection as a result of accepting lots and lots of grant money. I'm worried and suspect Juneau International will end up like Glendale, Arizona has.

How do we get back the good old days of friendly gatherings, barbeques, and open hangar doors?

[WLIU]

The FAA order document that explains how an airport must operate to honor its grant assurances is 800 pages, and it does NOT say that you can not store personal items along side your aircraft. What it does say is that the airport must not bring in activities and tenants that impede the aviation use of the airport. Your storing of "stuff" along side your airplane is OK.

The issue of non-aviation business in hangars has actually come up at my home airport and our review of the FAA order does not find text that requires an airport to prohibit this. Those businesses just can not get in the way of the folks committing aviation.

FAA Order 5190.6b Airport Compliance Manual is a public document and available on the internet. If you need some light bed time reading, go to Part IV Airports and Aeronautical Users. You will find text there that applies to this discussion.

So did the guys with the FAA name badges say anything about their visit and the destination for the photos?

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[Bob Dingley]

A little more into: My 20 year lease was recorded November 1, 2002. In the 23 pages of the lease Article 4.1 states "The Lessee shall occupy and use the Leased Premises for the purpose of storing private aircraft." More than done! The rest is about other things like insurance, maintenance etc.. Juneau is located in a marine, salt air, temperate rain forest, so controled environment storage is important for the preservation of anything. What is wrong with personal posessions using unocupied space around the aircraft? The primary use is, by far, for aviation.

Mine states the same thing down here in FL. Everyone does the same thing. Unlock hangar. Pull plane out. Put P.U.or brown minivan or 65 Mustang in. Lock hangar and go fly. Could be for a couple of days.

[Mike Berg]

I think one of the things airport managers get concerned about is turning an airport into a junkyard. Ours is a little grass strip private field (club owned) where we lease the hanger ground space to hangar owners. Our by laws state "The primary purpose of hangars is for storage of aircraft" and "None club owned property must be contained within the hangars". What happens is the 'stuff' tends to spill outside. I happened to buy a hangar owned by a older tenant that was filled with matresses, old chairs, carpet, magazines and newspapers from the 1960's. Not to mention about 1000 plastic milk bottles, cans, boxes of junk....you name it. You can picture a 40 X 30 building at least knee high with trash. Not only does stuff like this give rodents a home, it's also a fire hazard to the other hangar owners. As manager I was forever after the owner to clean up piles of junk around his hangar but he just seemed to look past it. Finally it was just easier to buy the hangar and clean it out as he had sold his aircraft,anyway but take my word for it 'junk' is in the eyes of the beholder.

[I_FLY_LOW]

Anything to kill the comraderie...
http://www.azcentral.com/community/g...-hangouts.html

[Jonathan Harger]

EAA is acutely aware of the hangar inspections occurring at airports across the country as a direct result of the Glendale interpretation of 2012. EAA shares your concern that the interpretation has the potential to "sterilize" airports and make them inhospitable to communal and social gathering, which would have profoundly negative consequences for recreational aviation. We believe that if local pilot communities cannot gather and use hangars as community spaces, safety will be affected (because "hangar flying" is an important, time-honored way to communicate aeronautical knowledge, experience, and wisdom) and recreational aviation participation will suffer (because a big part of flying for fun is the excellent community, and flying is somewhat less fun when that community element is removed).
Late last month we had a very productive conversation with the FAA's office of airport compliance about this very issue. They told us that the Glendale interpretation had a reach and scope that they never intended, and that the FAA has no desire to police hangars. Unfortunately, before the Glendale interpretation there was no clear FAA hangar policy, and airport managers took that interpretation as the law of the land--in short, they were concerned that if they did not enforce what they thought was the new policy, they would be at risk of losing federal AIP funding. EAA supports reasonable hangar use policies, because clearly non-aeronautical use of hangars is not in the best interest of GA (like people who rent a hangar and use it as a storage locker, or as a silkscreen shop, etc.). That being said, we want a policy that allows objects that promote community gathering in hangars--so long as the space has a predominately aeronautical use.
We expect a hangar use policy (not just a legal interpretation for one airport case) to be released from airport compliance in January/February, and we hope to be able to offer EAA's comments to the new policy. Like I mentioned, our conversation with that office was very positive, and we are optimistic that the new policy will be recreational aviation-friendly. We hope that when this policy comes out, airport managers will be much less inclined to impose draconian rules on hangar usage. When this policy comes out, we will publicize it heavily on our website, forum, and eHotline.
Stay tuned!

[WLIU]

We have a couple of airports in NH that may be running into the fall out of Glendale. Suggestions for the best way to push back?

Thanks,

Wes
N78PS

[pacerpilot]

We have a couple of airports in NH that may be running into the fall out of Glendale. Suggestions for the best way to push back?

Thanks

Wes
N78PS

Wes, when faced with an "inspection", tell "authority" to go get a search warrant. They need a LEGAL reason to enter your property. What somebody did in another state at another time won't get it done. A local judge won't issue on "because we want to" so they'll need to contact their buddies in OK city or DC. Everybody needs to remember, leased property is yours while the lease is in force. I don't care what some fool determined in Glendale. If the FAA, or anyone else, demands entry into/onto my property I will make them go through every process of law first-and then perhaps me. I am sick of the ever increasing presence of "Big Brother" and the "sheeple" that let our rights get trampled. We all need to question and resist these actions.