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