CHESAPEAKE – New hangars at the Lawrence County Airpark will open within three weeks, Tri-State Aviation Technologies Center director Jay Conley said.

Monday, March 20, 2000

CHESAPEAKE – New hangars at the Lawrence County Airpark will open within three weeks, Tri-State Aviation Technologies Center director Jay Conley said.

If good weather holds, the private pilots constructing the hangars will be able to move in at that time, Conley said.

The pilots are paying about $30,000 to build each hangar. The county leased the land to each pilot for 20 years at the same $20-per-month rate as an aircraft tie-down space rental.

In exchange for the low-rate lease, the property will revert to the county at the end of the lease, Conley said.

If the airport itself had constructed the hangars, it would have been too costly, he added.

The opening of the new hangars will mean more opportunities for the airport, Conley said.

"This will open up five or six of the old hangars so we can move in more people," he said. "This has long been needed. Hangar space is at a premium everywhere."

Commissioners foresee future growth at the airport because of the new additions.

Tax money is not being spent to build the hangars, yet the county will receive the benefit of having them there, commissioners Paul Herrell and George Patterson said.

Pilots plan to build nine more hangars when the current project is completed, Conley said.

Other improvements are underway or planned at the county airstrip, too, he said.

A new Computer Assisted Testing Site (CATS), the authorized provider of all Federal Aviation Association and Federal Communication Commission exams, opened last year.

The staff is currently remodeling the administration building.

And, a new FAA-approved flight simulator should come online within the month, Conley said.

"Because it’s FAA-approved, pilots can log time in it," he said, adding that it will be used by flight instructors.

"It’s a great benefit because the instructor can program it to create their own malfunctions and different types of weather for training," Conley said.

The airport also is boosting pilot training offers by purchasing another training aircraft. Two more planned purchases will bring the airport’s total schooling aircraft to five by the end of summer, Conley said.

And the aircraft are definitely needed, he said.

"We have 65 active students and it will go up from there," he said. "We’ve been making presentations to schools and showing how obtainable this is and how beneficial it can be to their future."

Conley operates the non-profit Tri-State Aviation Technologies, which was the group originally formed by the county board of education to run the county-owned airport. But state law prevented educators from following through on plans.

But Tri-State Aviation Technologies is hoping to continue that education-centered approach at the airport, Conley said.