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We were on a road trip, meeting at the Fergus Falls Airport. We recited the Pledge of Allegiance to a flag one could see out the window, if they bent down a little, and then Keith Olson offered our invocation and those assembled recited The Four Way Test. Our guests were Sunrise Rotarian Guy Olson and soon to be member Cody Odland. President Zack indicated a need for a volunteer on October 5th for the backpack program and that Bonnie is in the process of finding out from the schools how many dictionaries we need to order for third graders this year. There was a Rotary Minute for which we scored 50%. Zack led off the bragging, indicating he attended a men's retreat at High Point Bible Camp the prior weekend with 75 in attendance and really enjoyed himself; the activites included ax throwing and zip lining. I think there was one brag I didn't hear and then Kathy concluded this segment of our meeting talking about being in Haiti (?) with thirty others the past week. Keith Olson, who has been one of five members of the Airport Advisory Board for many years, introduced our speaker, Alexander ("Sander") Habraken, who owns the business that now manages the Airport (called a fixed base operation or "FBO"). Sander is originally from the Netherlands and has three boys. He has been in his position for a little over two years and we were told he has worked very hard in bringing services back to the Airport. Sander first started flying out of Fergus Falls in 1992. A full motion simulator has now been installed in which a person can take self-guided lessons, beginning at beginner and including more advanced stages. The simulator was obtained from a flight school in the Los Angeles area that had three of them and just came on-line last week. It cost $65,000 and is very lifelike, including wrap-around screens. Currently, there are ten students actively engaged at the Airport in flying lessons. Sander told us that they were starting to install a new fuel system. The main runway is 5,600 feet long and can handle most mid-size planes, catering to everything underneath a Gulfstream. He said the airport averages about 25 flight operations a day and on our tour showed us a big display that shows every plane in the air over the continent. The 20-year-old weather station is being replaced. We also saw a monstrous snow grader that the airport has owned for about three years, with a 24-foot-wide blade. Since the runway is 100 feet wide, it takes five passes to clear it and doing so is done most efficiently when driven at full speed. Sander's oldest son Greg operates it and the set-up cost just over one-half million dollars. There is also a giant eight-foot blower attachment, but switching out is a two-hour job and they can only use one device at a time, preferring the blade. While he was talking,Sander demonstrated his skill at making 3D objects out of a dollar bill, using one Guy loaned him to fashion a bow tie. We were shown various airplanes, including a jet that Sander flies at a cruising altitude of 40,000 feet. Planes now being manufactured will have a button you can push so they will land themselves in case the pilot is disabled. There is a huge backlog on plane parts which can result in aircraft sitting on the ground for months waiting for parts. The average use you get out of an engine is 300 hours and every 100 hours a plane needs to undergo a maintenance inspection. There is also a requirement for an annual inspection, with an average cost of $2,000. In terms of flying costs, turbine engine planes are very expensive, with fuel being the biggest component (getting higher speeds and altitudes costs more); they can cost $4,500 an hour. It takes Sander two hours and twenty minutes to fly to New York from here, about a half hour more coming back because of the prevailing headwinds. Right now UPS only flies into Fergus in case of emergency, which, in the winter, averages about one time a week because of weather. Sander also has some involvement in Dutchmen Organics, formerly Meadow Farm Foods, located at 211 W. Lincoln Ave., and he told us the move to downtown is working well and they are in the process of adding a coffee and sushi shop in the back of the store. |
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