AVIATION SAFETY CONFERENCE, EXPO, AND FLY-IN
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Niagara Falls International Airport
9900 Porter Road, Niagara Falls, New York 14304
716-297-1310
| 5:00 PM |
- |
Cookout Sponsored by Tech Aviation and BRP Aviation
Static Aircraft Display (including aerobatic and rare aircraft, as well as
aircraft from the USAF 107th Air Refueling Wing, the USAF 914th Airlift Wing,
and Calspan’s Total In-Flight Simulator (TIFS)) |
| 6:45 PM |
- |
Introduction to Conference and Presentation of Award from FSDO |
| 7:00 PM |
- |
Safety Presentation by Sandy McClure of the FAA Eastern Region Office of Runway
Safety |
| 8:00 PM |
- |
Safety Panel Q & A (Panel includes Ms. McClure and representatives from the
USAF 914th and USAF 107th, Niagara Falls Control Tower, Buffalo Control Tower,
and FSDO) |
Exciting and Valuable Door Prizes Will Be Awarded !
Register online at
www.faasafety.gov
Here is a report on the event
FAA Safety Seminar
Hot dogs and Hamburgers were provided by Tech Aviation and BRP Aviation. There was a static aircraft display with Yac’s, Sukois, a T-6 and other local aircraft as well as a few planes from the military base.
Dan Maloney gave us a tour of the KC-135.
The safety seminar was about runway incursions focusing on problems at the Niagara Falls airport. To start out, Sandra McClure discussed runway safety. You can get highlights of her talk at this website: http://www.faa.gov/runwaysafety/
Bill Schramm talked about some of the issues at Niagara Falls. He focused on some of the hot spots at Niagara Falls:
A. The tower can’t see traffic once it’s on the ground at the far end of runway 10L. There are trees obscuring the view.
B. Taxiway Kilo has areas that are obscured by tress as well.
C. Taxiway Delta at runway 28L. Taxiway Delta is a wide, well paved runway that’s been stressed to handle some very heavy aircraft. Runway 28L is not as wide as taxiway Delta so if you’re taxiing on Delta and you get to runway 28L there is a tendency to think that it’s another taxiway. Many times this causes a pilot, who’d been directed to hold at 28L, to taxi right across it.
D. Runway 28R and runway 24 are in very close proximity to each other. If you’ve been cleared for takeoff on runway 24 and you taxi from taxiway Delta on to the runway, the possibility exists that you may taxi onto 28R instead.
E. Pilots coming from the west ramp that are instructed to taxi to and hold short of runway 24 must be aware that, when they get to runway 6, they need to hold.
One of the best ways to help the controllers on the ground at Niagara (or at any towered airport for that matter) is to have a current airport diagram in the plane. I download them from AOPA but there are a number of sources.