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2008-2009
Roads: In 2008 we made great strides in the development and
maintenance of our airpark. Phase I of the Road Paving
Project was completed in late September. Phase I was to pave
all the perimeter roads, Phase II will be to pave all the
interior roads, and the final Phase III will be to recoat
all the roads once again to provide a 20 year road for our
property owners.
Runway: The thresholds of runway 09/27 were resealed and repainted.
We decided to cut back the trees once again along the runway
and taxiways to increase the distance for additional
clearance for pilot’s safety. All existing ditches along the
runway from the installation of the runway lights in May of
2007 and past erosion areas have been filled in with dirt
and grass. The runway and all the taxiways were
re-fertilized and parts were reseeded with
Bermuda. Since the runway and a few taxiways
were resurfaced over the past two years the Bermuda grass
has established itself very well. We will apply more dirt to
level some low spots and apply more fertilizer on the runway
and taxiways close to spring of 2009. We feel as we get
towards the middle of summer we will have the runway and
taxiways in great shape.
Additional Projects: We retrofitted our private lake front area with
four picnic tables, a fire pit, a large grill for cooking
out, trash can and had installed a nice looking full-time
port-a-potty. We also worked along side the Property Owners
Association (POA) to develop the new central trash location
along the north road just east of Lazy Eight Trail. We
installed a new entrance on
Wingover Drive
(north road) to accommodate the heavy trash truck coming in
and out of the airpark. We also installed many new culverts
throughout the property to aid in the draining of water
within and around the property. We tore down the old front
entrance sign and rebuilt a new one with a new sign and
coach lights. We worked with the
county of Henderson
to install DOT approved airport signs along HWY 155 and that
should make it a little easier for our visitors to find our
airpark.
Maintenance: A large majority of the development and the maintenance
was completed by David Groome (Director of Operations) and
his team, as well as help from are local contractors. On a
daily basis, David and his team keep Aero Estates Airpark
looking like a first class airpark that we can all be proud
of. Please let him know what a great job he and his team
have been doing next time you see him.
Sales and Marketing: We sold 16 lots in 2008, attended the Sun-n-Fun
Fly-In in Florida, the Oshkosh Air Adventure, increased our
advertising presence in national publications, hosted two
fly-ins at the airpark, as well as a great 4th of July
party. The fly-ins were a big success for our property
owners, fellow pilots that flew in and putting us on the map
as a place pilots want to live at. The fly-ins also allowed
us to continue to bridge a connection with our local
community and we look forward to working with the POA for
our next Aero Estates Fly-In, hopefully around the early
summer of 2009. I look forward to working with the POA to
coming up with new ideas to get more of our residents
involved in community projects, planned fly-ins and
gatherings.
What’s New in 2009:
Public
Use
Airport:
As of late
January 2009, I was notified by the Texas Department of
Transportation Aviation Division that our “public use”
request had been accepted and is currently active. Our
airport identifier has changed to
“T25” effective
immediately and we will see a majority of the updates on the
aviation charts and other national publications sometime in
March 2009. This “public use” status will provide us with
additional protection from surrounding residential zoned
areas and better visibility throughout the FAA structure.
Winter: We will address any problem areas on the roads, runway and
taxiways as they arise. We have begun mapping out the areas
around the two ponds and the unusable land around them. We
will be cutting in walking trails, a children’s play area
and various nature viewing areas in the near future. We have
lowered two culverts on Wingover
Drive
that drains water out of the pond behind lot 94 and we are
currently working with the city to lower the culvert under
the county road in the same area to provide additional
drainage. This will help reduce the amount of water that
gets built up behind lots 89-94, lots 85-88, lots 99-102,
and will allow more use of the areas around the pond areas.
We will also be completing the taxiway development on Delta,
Foxtrot, and Echo.
Spring: We will concentrate on upgrading the north half of the
runway by bringing in approximately 60 loads of topsoil,
Bermuda
seed and fertilizer.
We will then focus on smoothing out the remaining
runway and taxiway areas with additional topsoil to provide
an enhanced/smoother finish. We will plan to roll the runway
and taxiway grass surfaces twice in the spring/summer and
twice in the fall. We will continue to address some low
hanging limbs along all the roads to provide ingress-egress
for large motor homes, as well as along taxiways. We will
then focus on putting chip seal (white top rock) on the
interior roads that are currently being used.
Summer: We will relook the idea of bringing in aviation fuel (100L)
on a trailer to the airpark for our residence and their
visitors. The idea is to have a credit card swipe access
and/or a monthly payment method for our residence. We are
also looking into planting around 100 live oak trees along
the perimeter. Install three float plane docks down at the
lake front for seaplane parking/mooring, widen out the
current boat ramp to an additional 15 feet. This will help
accommodate float planes on trailers and additional room for
larger boats as well. We will also make repairs to the boat
dock and make modifications to accommodate float planes and
boat mooring to the dock. We will then replace some of the
lake point top soil with sand to allow for beach mooring of
aircraft and/or water craft in the future.
Fall/Winter: We will plan to complete Phase II of the interior roads
that are not currently being used. We will then relook the
plans to install a fence around our airpark and a runway
sprinkler system for the runway.
We will
always continue to work with the city to improve our water
delivery plan, electrical plan, trash and mail service to
meet the needs of a growing community. We will also continue
to work with our FAA consultant and the POA to keep them
updated on our development plans and ideas to solicit their
input. We will continue to ask for suggestions from our
property owners to make our planned development a combined
effort and better place to live for the Aero Estates Airpark
community.
I am very
excited to witness many of our property owners building
their dream homes and weekend getaways. As our airpark
grows, I look forward to providing both current and future
owners with continued property development and improvements
to our unique fly-in community. The 2008 year was very
exciting in terms of sales, growth and continued
development. I am very positive that this trend will
continue in 2009, as our airpark community flourishes and I
hope to see you out at Aero Estates Airpark again very soon!
We have a lot to do in 2009 and I will keep you informed of
our development plans and our current projects through the
POA channels.
Respectfully,
Robert “Rob” Huber
Owner/Developer
Aero Estates Airpark
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