CAA: GA News, "Pilots complain that North Carolina airport authority is being nitpicky over rules"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

April 19, 2000

Pilots complain that Airport Authority is being nitpicky over rules
By DENISE BECKER, Staff Writer
News & Record


ASHEBORO -- Complaining that their interests were not being represented,
several pilots demanded Tuesday night that the chairman of the Asheboro
Airport Authority resign.

A discussion during the airport authority's quarterly meeting started
innocently enough with a review of a lease agreement. It quickly escalated,
however, into a heated attack on the chairman and a threat by the airport's
warplane museum to move elsewhere.

For a little less than a year, Chuck O'Buckley has been constructing a "kit"
plane in the hanger he rents at the airport.

Walter Gordon, chairman of the Asheboro Airport Authority for the past 13
years, sent a letter to Matlab Inc., which oversees the hangar's lease
agreements, demanding that the plane be removed because the airport's
regulations do not allow any maintenance to be conducted in the hangars.

Gordon said that the hangars do not meet building codes to allow
maintenance, and therefore the agreement with the city is that the hangars
are to be used for storage only.

Bill Kurdian of Matlab Inc. challenged that assertion during the authority's
meeting Tuesday, saying that the FAA allows the construction of such planes
and that the airport could not legally prohibit it.

The Airport Authority agreed to let the city's risk manager examine the
lease and decide whether the city could legally allow the plane's
construction on its grounds.

O'Buckley said that the bi-wing plane did not contain any fuel, nor did it
require any welding to be done and therefore, there was little threat that
his project posed a hazard to the airport.

"Man, it's just ridiculous," O'Buckley said. "I think there should be safety
considerations, but this is just someone's personal opinion about what the
rules are."

Gordon said that he is only looking out for the city's interests.

"If I don't go around and see what's going on out here, then nobody else
will," Gordon said. "I'm just trying to follow the written language. I'm not
making this up, it's all written down. I'm just trying to enforce the
rules."

Several pilots attending the meeting, however, accused Gordon of nit-picking
and taking the fun out of flying at the airport.

Craig Branson, a member of the Peddycord Flying Museum at the airport, said
he agrees that Gordon "is part of the problem." He complained that Gordon
seemed unwilling to compromise on issues and that the museum officials find
it difficult to work with him.

"You've done a lot of good here," Branson told Gordon. "But with people,
you've not been reasonable. We're really having a hard time with all this
nit-picking."

Branson said that he would like to see the museum purchase another site
along Highway 49 and move. "It's gotten to that point," he said.

Asheboro resident Bob Williamson was even more forceful. A pilot who has
used the airport for about six years, Williamson demanded that Gordon resign
from the airport authority, which Gordon declined to do.

Williamson then urged all those in the room -- about 15 people -- to write
the city demanding Gordon's removal. The Asheboro Mayor appoints the
chairman of the Airport Authority.

"I am fed up," he told Gordon. "You do not represent my views here."

Gordon said he got the message. "I will try to do better." After the
meeting, he conceded that he "was pushing people a little too hard, I
guess."


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