I don't live any where near there but this kind of stuff just pisses me off....
Support Against Brantford Airport Closure Continues to Grow Petitions obtain over 500 signatures
Written by Brant Aero
17:22z - 2007/02/17
BRANTFORD - An online petition and its paper counterpart started by a small business at the Brantford Municipal Airport (CYFD) in Ontario, Canada have together gathered over 500 signatures in under eight months. The petitions were created in response to the City of Brantford's municipal service review last year, when it threatened to shut down the airport. The review deemed it a non-essential service, despite concurrent talks between city and airport managers about expansion and investment in maintaining the airport. The petitions are a small part of how residents of Brant County and members of the airport community continue to voice their disagreement with the City's stance.
CYFD is one of the few airports in the region small enough not to have landing fees, yet large enough to provide substantial services such as instrument approaches, a 5,000-foot runway, jet fuel, and storage for aircraft the size of a Super DC-3. It's not hard to see why the possibility of losing it has been met with incredulousness from its many regulars. "What is Brantford doing?" one petitioner writes, pointing out that even cities much smaller than Brantford are currently expanding their airports.
Another petitioner recalls how many opportunities were given to her at the Brantford Airport, remarking that the "location and atmosphere of the airport make it an excellent place for people to learn to fly." In a time when there's a shortage of pilots in the industry, yet another petitioner asks for CYFD to stay open, given its first-rate pilot training facilities. Other petitioners lament the idea of losing the close-knit community of the Brantford Flying Club, and the good friends and good food found at the Skyway Café.
Brant Aero, the author of the petitions, has a reputation that has attracted aviation customers from all over Canada, the US, and overseas.
Despite its small size, the company has become well-known among vendors and customers for combining cutting-edge technology with old-fashioned hard work. Because of this, many of its customers have signed the petition as well. Although the petition, being directed to the City, is open only to those directly concerned with CYFD, it's important that the aviation community is aware of Brantford's situation.
A proactive political stance may help save other vital airport communities the battle and the uncertainty that the Brantford Airport has had to face recently.
About Brant Aero
Brant Aero is a family-run aircraft business established in 1972. Located at the Brantford Municipal Airport, its facilities include over 40,000 square feet of hangar space. While its focus remains on small aircraft maintenance and avionics, Brant Aero is not shy about expanding their experience. They create custom aircraft modifications, training programs, sales web sites, and other goods and services as their customers require.
The online petition is available at
http://www.petitiononline.com/savecyfd/
Contact: Kevin Field, Web Editor, 519-753-7022, savetheairport@brantaero.com,
http://www.brantaero.com/
http://www.aviation.ca/content/view/4228/125/
City considering closing down Brantford Airport
Moderators: lilfssister, North Shore, sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, I WAS Birddog
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Pilot_adam
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Get used to seeing a LOT more closures of smaller airports like this - the vast majority of municipal politicians (who are usually at best local hairdressers, plumbers, etc) see airports as a frivolous luxury.
They generally have no clue as to what a medevac is, nor are they aware of the corporate use of the airport by local businesses, nor do they have any idea of the economic impact of an airport on a region.
To quote Joni Mitchell, "You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone".
They generally have no clue as to what a medevac is, nor are they aware of the corporate use of the airport by local businesses, nor do they have any idea of the economic impact of an airport on a region.
To quote Joni Mitchell, "You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone".
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sky's the limit
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- Location: Now where's the starter button on this thing???
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marktheone
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- Location: An airplane.
Update.....
Threat of Closure Lingers at CYFD
Written by Brant Aero
13:49z - 2007/03/23
The Brantford Municipal Airport (CYFD) located in southwestern Ontario has come under fire lately from city politicians. Brantford's Corporate Service Review, begun in 2005 and slated for completion in 2010, threatens to shut down the farmers' market; community, youth, health, and wellness programs; and the airport. Brant Aero, a maintenance and avionics shop on the site, began a petition in protest last year. Thanks to recent press coverage and help from Aviation.ca, the petition has recently reached over 800 signatures. But a Canada-wide press release two weeks ago mostly only elicited reaction from the aviation community, in forums, blogs, and additional petition signatures: general public news sources were reluctant to run the story. Nonetheless, inspired by the recent outpouring of support and petitioners' comments, we at Brant Aero continue to advocate for the airport. This is our take on the story.
When what we know as CYFD opened in 1929, it's unlikely anyone knew just how many people's lives the friendly, flourishing airport would be benefiting by the next century. Today, students often choose airport businesses to gain valuable experience through local high-school co-op programs. Blind and deaf-blind students from W. Ross MacDonald--one of two residential schools-for-the-blind in Ontario--are always flying home from CYFD to be with their families on weekends, and are given tours of airport organizations. Tens of thousands of local residents pack the airport each year to catch the legendary Snowbirds and Skyhawks, raising $29,000 (2006 figure) for the United Way, which in turn support dozens of important community organizations in Brantford.
Between air shows, flight students train at the at the Brantford Flight Centre in order to join the hundreds of airline, medical, and private pilots that fondly remember graduating from there. The Centre itself is run by the Brantford Flying Club, Canada's second-oldest flying club and the home of the Skyway Café. A warm and welcoming space, typifying the spirit of the Brantford Airport community, the Café serves as a gathering spot for pilots, friends, and family.
But the Café is not alone in gaining business through the airport. Besides Brant Aero and the flying club, Gilbert Custom Aircraft, Nelles Aviation, and Wescast Industries also depend on the airport's continued operation. Our businesses are also regular customers of many local businesses, relying on them for things like aircraft interior supplies and services, network infrastructure, and building maintenance. But additional economic spin-off comes from drawing people to Brantford. When our businesses grow, we hire new employees, who then move and spend their money living here, and our customers regularly spend time in town, eating at restaurants, staying at hotels, and shopping.
Our customers fly to our airport because we are dedicated and have spent decades building our reputation and putting Brantford on the map. Ask around at any flying club in the surrounding regions and inevitably recommendations will point you here. We have solid relations with customers from all over Ontario, Canada, and the US. Even markets as far away as neutral Middle Eastern countries continue to grow their relationships with us.
While word-of-mouth is how most of our reputations have spread, it has also helped that Brantford is home to Brant Aero's avionics demo plane, known proudly by its owners as 'the Bullet.' A classic, polished-aluminum 1958 Cessna 310B outfitted with--at last count--eight moving-map GPS systems, the Bullet often receives compliments from air traffic controllers and pilots wherever it lands, from Tuk to Florida. In fact, when Atom Egoyan was here filming Where the Truth Lies (2005), he so impressed with the Bullet that he included in the film. Many other movies and car commercials have been done here as well. Of course, all of this has meant even more economic spin-off for Brantford, thanks to CYFD.
But it could mean a lot more. Even in purely economic terms, our city does not realize the value and potential of our airport. Towns a fraction the size of our city have airports as active as ours. For example, the airport at Nelson, BC, a town of 9,200 people, has a direct impact of over $10 million annually on the local economy. In contrast, Red Deer, AB, a city of comparable size to Brantford, has an airport employing ten times as many people, realizing an annual direct economic impact of almost $80 million. One need not wonder, then, at the conclusions of a recent study funded by Industry Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. In 2006, the study's authors concluded, "Although many [...] municipal airports run at operating deficits, they provide great economic benefit to their communities."
We agree: it's just like paved roads. They generate little income by themselves (except for toll routes), yet are crucial to the economy, and furthermore depend on the maintenance of neighbouring roads in order to be useful. Airports, however, experience the multiplier effect in a more profound way. As pilots often say, a mile of highway takes one a mile, but a mile of runway takes one to the world.
Along this line, the study cited earlier also concludes, "Canada's larger airports and communities [...] need a network of smaller airports and communities to grow and prosper over the longer term." It's strange, then, to step back and observe the strategy of our governments at all levels in the past few decades. In 1970, the federal government granted the airport land at Brantford to the city provided it would continue to run as an airport. In itself, this was logical, considering that the federal government's initial heavy investment in airports was for wartime purposes. However, the agreement also became part of a long trend in Canada towards the privatization of public services. By 1994, Transport Canada had introduced the National Airports Policy, which then-Transport Minister Doug Young later admitted "was the worst decision of his career." The trend has also been seen at the provincial level, at least in Ontario. Called "municipal downloading," it was a tactic largely employed by the Harris government in the late '90s, but municipalities are still dealing with the effects today. For Brantford this has made it impossible to make up the difference without massive tax increases for locals. So when it comes down to whether to cut an airport that is not directly able to support itself, and the larger network of airports is not our city's concern, it's much easier for politicians to take a shortsighted approach to the issue and just get rid of an airport seen by some as a "luxury expense."
If this is the reality, though, perhaps it was too hopeful of the city to envision Brantford to be "proud, vibrant, progressive...a 'GRAND' community for living, learning, working, and playing." Supposedly this is the very lens through which city council has been evaluating municipal services. They even explicitly list the following specific long-term goals to consider during their evaluation:
Brantford will have a strong diversified economic base that provides its citizens with excellent local job opportunities.
Brantford will be a business friendly community.
Brantford will be known as a leading centre for learning and innovation - supported by a comprehensive education system.
Brantford's downtown will be vibrant and successful - the hub for its citizens, students, businesses, visitors and government.
Brantford will be a proud city with a positive image.
Now, the city placed each service into one of six categories. "Category 1" means they are required by federal or provincial legislation to provide the service, and "Category 6" means they find the service irrelevant. With the sole exception of the above point about the downtown, we cannot see how the airport was evaluated as a "Category 5" service along these lines. As mentioned above, the 1970 federal sale terms suggest to us that the airport would be a "Category 1" service. Furthermore, the local farmer's market and many other essential community and social supports are in "Category 5." We think the city should be taking a national leadership role and fighting back against provincial and federal downloading, rather than trying to absorb the effects by cutting the programs that currently help our city to thrive.
After all, as many petitioners have pointed out, it's orders of magnitude more expensive to build a new civil airport than to maintain one that we happen to have left over from the war effort. In fact, we couldn't find a figure for how much an airport similar to Brantford's would cost to build, because it's not a feasible investment for anyone. (Only large-scale international airports occasionally get built from scratch, with private and federal funding.) So we can't understand why the city would be willing to tear down not only the current airport, but also any hope of having an airport in the future, because they're one and the same.
It's also fairly confusing that, despite the whole evaluation process, the city has been at the same time negotiating with us about investing money in much-needed repairs to our 65-year-old hangar doors. These mixed messages have made us wary of doing any other upgrades to our business infrastructure: why bother investing money that we would need a couple years from now to start up somewhere else? We hope that meanwhile this is not being passed on to our customers, but meanwhile the city's double-talk keeps us from purchasing local goods and services and, of course, keeps us from gleaning the benefits of such purchases.
Aside from this frustration, the possibility of closing the airport has been called a "sad irony" by private pilot David Megginson in his blog. Brantford is proud enough for having been the home of Alexander Graham Bell to go by the nickname "The Telephone City" and maintain a historical site at the Bell Homestead. As Megginson reminds us, "Bell is also famous, however, for founding the Aerial Experiment Association, which produced the Silver Dart, the aircraft that made the first controlled, powered flight in Canada (and the British Empire)."
Another irony brings us back to the city's Strategic Plan. In another general vision of theirs we heartily agree with, they purport to "Establish a positive image of Brantford that reflects a small town quality with big city opportunities." Our airport has, for a long time, been exactly that. CYFD is small enough not to have landing fees, which have often discouraged private pilots from landing at other airports. It's also large enough to have a 5,000-foot runway suitable for corporate and military jets. Traffic at Brantford is light enough to manage itself via a Unicom channel, sparing the municipal expense of air traffic controller systems. The traffic is also heavy enough to support FBO and fuel services. In addition, CYFD has its own NDB and GPS approaches, and is an official CANPASS port of entry. Finally, Brantford's location serves as the perfect alternative to landing at more crowded airports, which at the same time carries the network advantage of being a gateway to services that only such larger airports can provide.
Unfortunately, despite the numerous above-cited advantages our airport brings to Brantford, and city planning rhetoric suggesting a desire to capitalize on such advantages, closure is still at risk. Further, Brantford is by no means the only city in Canada experiencing this. Although there's a (perhaps rather idealistic) sense in which nobody should have to do this, we urge you to become politically aware and active in your own city. We urge this whether your airport is looked on favourably right now or not, before the leaders of today or tomorrow make some big mistakes.
http://www.aviation.ca/content/view/4329/125/
Threat of Closure Lingers at CYFD
Written by Brant Aero
13:49z - 2007/03/23
The Brantford Municipal Airport (CYFD) located in southwestern Ontario has come under fire lately from city politicians. Brantford's Corporate Service Review, begun in 2005 and slated for completion in 2010, threatens to shut down the farmers' market; community, youth, health, and wellness programs; and the airport. Brant Aero, a maintenance and avionics shop on the site, began a petition in protest last year. Thanks to recent press coverage and help from Aviation.ca, the petition has recently reached over 800 signatures. But a Canada-wide press release two weeks ago mostly only elicited reaction from the aviation community, in forums, blogs, and additional petition signatures: general public news sources were reluctant to run the story. Nonetheless, inspired by the recent outpouring of support and petitioners' comments, we at Brant Aero continue to advocate for the airport. This is our take on the story.
When what we know as CYFD opened in 1929, it's unlikely anyone knew just how many people's lives the friendly, flourishing airport would be benefiting by the next century. Today, students often choose airport businesses to gain valuable experience through local high-school co-op programs. Blind and deaf-blind students from W. Ross MacDonald--one of two residential schools-for-the-blind in Ontario--are always flying home from CYFD to be with their families on weekends, and are given tours of airport organizations. Tens of thousands of local residents pack the airport each year to catch the legendary Snowbirds and Skyhawks, raising $29,000 (2006 figure) for the United Way, which in turn support dozens of important community organizations in Brantford.
Between air shows, flight students train at the at the Brantford Flight Centre in order to join the hundreds of airline, medical, and private pilots that fondly remember graduating from there. The Centre itself is run by the Brantford Flying Club, Canada's second-oldest flying club and the home of the Skyway Café. A warm and welcoming space, typifying the spirit of the Brantford Airport community, the Café serves as a gathering spot for pilots, friends, and family.
But the Café is not alone in gaining business through the airport. Besides Brant Aero and the flying club, Gilbert Custom Aircraft, Nelles Aviation, and Wescast Industries also depend on the airport's continued operation. Our businesses are also regular customers of many local businesses, relying on them for things like aircraft interior supplies and services, network infrastructure, and building maintenance. But additional economic spin-off comes from drawing people to Brantford. When our businesses grow, we hire new employees, who then move and spend their money living here, and our customers regularly spend time in town, eating at restaurants, staying at hotels, and shopping.
Our customers fly to our airport because we are dedicated and have spent decades building our reputation and putting Brantford on the map. Ask around at any flying club in the surrounding regions and inevitably recommendations will point you here. We have solid relations with customers from all over Ontario, Canada, and the US. Even markets as far away as neutral Middle Eastern countries continue to grow their relationships with us.
While word-of-mouth is how most of our reputations have spread, it has also helped that Brantford is home to Brant Aero's avionics demo plane, known proudly by its owners as 'the Bullet.' A classic, polished-aluminum 1958 Cessna 310B outfitted with--at last count--eight moving-map GPS systems, the Bullet often receives compliments from air traffic controllers and pilots wherever it lands, from Tuk to Florida. In fact, when Atom Egoyan was here filming Where the Truth Lies (2005), he so impressed with the Bullet that he included in the film. Many other movies and car commercials have been done here as well. Of course, all of this has meant even more economic spin-off for Brantford, thanks to CYFD.
But it could mean a lot more. Even in purely economic terms, our city does not realize the value and potential of our airport. Towns a fraction the size of our city have airports as active as ours. For example, the airport at Nelson, BC, a town of 9,200 people, has a direct impact of over $10 million annually on the local economy. In contrast, Red Deer, AB, a city of comparable size to Brantford, has an airport employing ten times as many people, realizing an annual direct economic impact of almost $80 million. One need not wonder, then, at the conclusions of a recent study funded by Industry Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. In 2006, the study's authors concluded, "Although many [...] municipal airports run at operating deficits, they provide great economic benefit to their communities."
We agree: it's just like paved roads. They generate little income by themselves (except for toll routes), yet are crucial to the economy, and furthermore depend on the maintenance of neighbouring roads in order to be useful. Airports, however, experience the multiplier effect in a more profound way. As pilots often say, a mile of highway takes one a mile, but a mile of runway takes one to the world.
Along this line, the study cited earlier also concludes, "Canada's larger airports and communities [...] need a network of smaller airports and communities to grow and prosper over the longer term." It's strange, then, to step back and observe the strategy of our governments at all levels in the past few decades. In 1970, the federal government granted the airport land at Brantford to the city provided it would continue to run as an airport. In itself, this was logical, considering that the federal government's initial heavy investment in airports was for wartime purposes. However, the agreement also became part of a long trend in Canada towards the privatization of public services. By 1994, Transport Canada had introduced the National Airports Policy, which then-Transport Minister Doug Young later admitted "was the worst decision of his career." The trend has also been seen at the provincial level, at least in Ontario. Called "municipal downloading," it was a tactic largely employed by the Harris government in the late '90s, but municipalities are still dealing with the effects today. For Brantford this has made it impossible to make up the difference without massive tax increases for locals. So when it comes down to whether to cut an airport that is not directly able to support itself, and the larger network of airports is not our city's concern, it's much easier for politicians to take a shortsighted approach to the issue and just get rid of an airport seen by some as a "luxury expense."
If this is the reality, though, perhaps it was too hopeful of the city to envision Brantford to be "proud, vibrant, progressive...a 'GRAND' community for living, learning, working, and playing." Supposedly this is the very lens through which city council has been evaluating municipal services. They even explicitly list the following specific long-term goals to consider during their evaluation:
Brantford will have a strong diversified economic base that provides its citizens with excellent local job opportunities.
Brantford will be a business friendly community.
Brantford will be known as a leading centre for learning and innovation - supported by a comprehensive education system.
Brantford's downtown will be vibrant and successful - the hub for its citizens, students, businesses, visitors and government.
Brantford will be a proud city with a positive image.
Now, the city placed each service into one of six categories. "Category 1" means they are required by federal or provincial legislation to provide the service, and "Category 6" means they find the service irrelevant. With the sole exception of the above point about the downtown, we cannot see how the airport was evaluated as a "Category 5" service along these lines. As mentioned above, the 1970 federal sale terms suggest to us that the airport would be a "Category 1" service. Furthermore, the local farmer's market and many other essential community and social supports are in "Category 5." We think the city should be taking a national leadership role and fighting back against provincial and federal downloading, rather than trying to absorb the effects by cutting the programs that currently help our city to thrive.
After all, as many petitioners have pointed out, it's orders of magnitude more expensive to build a new civil airport than to maintain one that we happen to have left over from the war effort. In fact, we couldn't find a figure for how much an airport similar to Brantford's would cost to build, because it's not a feasible investment for anyone. (Only large-scale international airports occasionally get built from scratch, with private and federal funding.) So we can't understand why the city would be willing to tear down not only the current airport, but also any hope of having an airport in the future, because they're one and the same.
It's also fairly confusing that, despite the whole evaluation process, the city has been at the same time negotiating with us about investing money in much-needed repairs to our 65-year-old hangar doors. These mixed messages have made us wary of doing any other upgrades to our business infrastructure: why bother investing money that we would need a couple years from now to start up somewhere else? We hope that meanwhile this is not being passed on to our customers, but meanwhile the city's double-talk keeps us from purchasing local goods and services and, of course, keeps us from gleaning the benefits of such purchases.
Aside from this frustration, the possibility of closing the airport has been called a "sad irony" by private pilot David Megginson in his blog. Brantford is proud enough for having been the home of Alexander Graham Bell to go by the nickname "The Telephone City" and maintain a historical site at the Bell Homestead. As Megginson reminds us, "Bell is also famous, however, for founding the Aerial Experiment Association, which produced the Silver Dart, the aircraft that made the first controlled, powered flight in Canada (and the British Empire)."
Another irony brings us back to the city's Strategic Plan. In another general vision of theirs we heartily agree with, they purport to "Establish a positive image of Brantford that reflects a small town quality with big city opportunities." Our airport has, for a long time, been exactly that. CYFD is small enough not to have landing fees, which have often discouraged private pilots from landing at other airports. It's also large enough to have a 5,000-foot runway suitable for corporate and military jets. Traffic at Brantford is light enough to manage itself via a Unicom channel, sparing the municipal expense of air traffic controller systems. The traffic is also heavy enough to support FBO and fuel services. In addition, CYFD has its own NDB and GPS approaches, and is an official CANPASS port of entry. Finally, Brantford's location serves as the perfect alternative to landing at more crowded airports, which at the same time carries the network advantage of being a gateway to services that only such larger airports can provide.
Unfortunately, despite the numerous above-cited advantages our airport brings to Brantford, and city planning rhetoric suggesting a desire to capitalize on such advantages, closure is still at risk. Further, Brantford is by no means the only city in Canada experiencing this. Although there's a (perhaps rather idealistic) sense in which nobody should have to do this, we urge you to become politically aware and active in your own city. We urge this whether your airport is looked on favourably right now or not, before the leaders of today or tomorrow make some big mistakes.
http://www.aviation.ca/content/view/4329/125/
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