Your airports’ staff hopes you have been enjoying your summer, and had the chance to take to the sky for some fun, a few business trips or a nice vacation. Keep your fingers crossed that the rest of the summer is more like the cooler August weather we’ve been enjoying lately and we don’t get another hot spell like we had in late July (whew was that miserable!). Sure makes it a lot more fun (and less sweaty) when you’re trying to get off the ground or doing turns in the pattern when it’s not 100° on the ramp! By all accounts, the annual EAA gathering at Oshkosh was another success with a lot of great aircraft and some decent weather (give or take a thunderstorm or two). We’ve got some great air shows and aviation gatherings in the area coming up in the next few months so check your calendars and make sure you get a chance to attend a few of these fun events. Reno Air Races, Salinas, Fleet Week, and the Reid-Hillview Airport Day (Sept. 23rd) are just a few of the coming attractions. Hope to see you at one of the events.

Did I mention we opened our new hangars at South County/San Martin Airport (E16) yet?? Well they are finally open and filling up fast! We want to thank all of you who stuck it out waiting (and waiting...and waiting) for this 100-unit project to be finished. We still have available hangars in various sizes. If you are interested in tucking your airplane in a brand new hangar complete with electricity, lighting, real bathrooms and wide open spaces; see Chris, Liliana or any of the Ops staff for more information and the requirements to sign up for a hangar. We hope to have a special new aircraft populating one of these hangars, as we anticipate the arrival of the first production Eclipse VLJ later this summer at E16.

On a sad note, as many of you are well aware by now, we lost a true friend of aviation, and a long-standing and iconic FBO business at Reid-Hillview Airport, when Vern Miller and his wife, Beth, were killed in an aircraft accident in Oregon. The folks at Amelia Reid Aviation and the rest of the aviation community turned out on Saturday June 25th for an aviation-themed tribute to the Millers. They will truly be missed by all who knew them. We also lost another aviator, adventurer, and a huge supporter of the Civil Air Patrol last spring when Don Towse died in a diving accident while on a trip to the Caribbean. His family and the CAP held a moving and wonderful memorial on June 17th on the lawn of the RHV terminal building with the airport for a backdrop.

We’re looking forward to completing a number of projects later this year. We hope to get the roof on the RHV terminal replaced in time for the winter rains, and we anticipate getting the next phase of our security fencing going up at about the same time for both RHV and E16. We received a $1.2 million grant from the FAA to install a Noise Monitoring and Flight Tracking system (NOMS) at Reid-Hillview. We also hope to get two AWOS IIIP weather systems installed at South County/San Martin and Palo Alto airports later this fall.

We’ve been doing a little shuffling of personnel this summer as well. Ernie Parker and Patrick McGuinness moved to start up our first full-time staffing of E16 in May as we anticipated the completion of the hangar project. They join Don Murphy who has been working part-time at E16 keeping everything running smoothly. Although they have been working hard (and it shows) at getting the airport ready for our new hangar tenants, they seem to be having way too much fun making new friends and leaving their mark on the airport! Frank Achondoa (PAO Ops) elected to retire in June, so Liliana and Mike Slaback have been picking up the slack and deserve a lot of credit for keeping PAO running safely and smoothly.

So it’s been a fairly busy summer for your airport’s staff. As always let us know how we’re doing and keep that feedback coming. Hope to see you soon and...

      Happy Landings!   Carl