Airman closed until further notice..

[phantomdriver]

It looks like airman does have some assets.

 

[Hipster Loser]

what a messy situation.
Thoses guys deserve to be sued. But im not surpirsed they shut todwn. Lots of flight schools are fly by night operations. I know they were around for a while but still, these places can shut down on a moments notice. It sounds like they knew they were being evicted and took ppls money. real foul.

 

[AV80R]

Déjà vu!

Wow, this situation sounds eerie familiar to me.

Years ago (~93 or so?), I was planning on attending Bolivar Aviation flight school in west Tennessee and only 5 days before my check was deposited - the flight school went out of business!!! (The check was actually already in the mail, I managed to get it cancelled )

There were tons of stranded students; most of them lost thousands and thousands of dollars. If I remember it correctly, after several lawsuits, all American student got 11¢ for each $ they had on their flight accounts; the foreign students got nothing (no protection for them at the time).

Several years later, another flight school in Tennessee (IFC – International Flight Center - Murfreesboro, TN) was behind payments to the city so they decided to move their operations to, SURPRISE!, Norman, OK. I believe they ended up merging with Airman, not sure on this one but I think that’s what happened.

Well, one of the reasons the owner of the flight school wanted to relocate to Oklahoma was a law enacted in TN due to the Bolivar Aviation fiasco. In a nutshell: a flight school in Tennessee is nowadays allowed to make a student pay for their training in advance, however the money must be locked in a special account that is only available to that particular student. In other words, they cannot use money from “new” students to pay the bills of “old” students. From what I understand, Oklahoma does (or did) not have similar laws.

Those regulations “stifled the growth” of IFC according to the owner (remember reading this in a local paper years ago), so they moved their entire operation. It looks to me like those regulations were the only protection students, both American AND foreign, had from crooked flight school owners.

I truly hope everything works out for you guys, God Bless!

Sincerely,
av80r

 

[MFRskyknight]

In a nutshell: a flight school in Tennessee is nowadays allowed to make a student pay for their training in advance, however the money must be locked in a special account that is only available to that particular student. In other words, they cannot use money from “new” students to pay the bills of “old” students. From what I understand, Oklahoma does (or did) not have similar laws.

Yeah, I can understand how running a flight school is a quick way to go broke. But the info about that TN law is good to know. I hope Oklahoma gets something like that going in the wake of this.

If they haven't already, Florida would also do well to take note here.

MFR

 

[phantomdriver]

I heard that the airport management is going to close the tower at KOUN in the near future because of the air traffic drop off a lot. From what i heard it will be by the end of the year or just at the beginning of 2006.

 

[MFRskyknight]

I heard that the airport management is going to close the tower at KOUN in the near future because of the air traffic drop off a lot. From what i heard it will be by the end of the year or just at the beginning of 2006.

I'm sure there's a nice tie-in to the Airman story for the press once they get wind of this.

MFR

 

[phantomdriver]

Is there any new word about the law suit about airman?

 

[MFRskyknight]

Is there any new word about the law suit about airman?

Nope. Give it a few months.

MFR

 

[JonJohn82]

I heard that the airport management is going to close the tower at KOUN in the near future because of the air traffic drop off a lot. From what i heard it will be by the end of the year or just at the beginning of 2006.

Where'd you hear that? OU still operates in there and there is plenty of transient traffic.

 

[phantomdriver]

I heard it when i was at ozzies.

 

[JonJohn82]

I don't know for sure, but I strongly doubt that. The tower was just recently redone. OU has plenty of sorties each day. Also, there is quite a bit of transient traffic. If Stillwater's tower is going to stay open. Westhiemer's tower will definitely stay open.

 

[minitour]

Didn't westheimer tower just get a new radar too? When I was finishing up out there, we kept getting squawk codes for pattern work...asked why and they said it was cuz of the "new radar".

I can't imagine they're closing any time soon. Too much transient traffic especially combined with OU. It's a pretty busy Class D...and it's only a part time tower anyway.

-mini

 

[phantomdriver]

Didn't westheimer tower just get a new radar too? When I was finishing up out there, we kept getting squawk codes for pattern work...asked why and they said it was cuz of the "new radar".

I can't imagine they're closing any time soon. Too much transient traffic especially combined with OU. It's a pretty busy Class D...and it's only a part time tower anyway.

-mini

I am just wanted to if it is true. I just heard about it the other day. I have been at other airports that had new upgrade then to close the tower.

 

[User546]

Didn't westheimer tower just get a new radar too? When I was finishing up out there, we kept getting squawk codes for pattern work...asked why and they said it was cuz of the "new radar".

Yeap, went up and saw the tower guys a month or two ago and they were proudly showing it off.

From the way I understood it, they're tying off of Tinker or OKC's radar. Pretty cool little gadget they had.

 

[minitour]

Yeap, went up and saw the tower guys a month or two ago and they were proudly showing it off.

From the way I understood it, they're tying off of Tinker or OKC's radar. Pretty cool little gadget they had.

Yep, that's what she told me. I think it was OKC's. I was inbound for some pattern work in the RG and reported crossing the river...she said "you are just getting to the river..." I said "close enough" and she started b!tching about how "at least the radar doesn't lie, but enter the downwind....."

Is "Mr. Grumpy-gills" still there?

-mini

 

[JonJohn82]

Are you talking about Jose mini? If so, yep. The lady, Sherry, is now the tower manager. They also recently hired someone from K-State.

 

[minitour]

That would be him.

He was working both ground and local one morning and I called for taxi for a West departure.
"Ground Cessna xxx Airman AWOS taxi VFR West"
"Taxi to runway ___"
"Runway ___"
"Tower Cessna xxx ready runway __ VFR West"
"Cleared for takeoff"
"Cleared for takeoff"
"Cessna ___ Where are you going?"
"West to Clinton"
"Make sure you tell me where you're going so I know...I cant have aircraft all over my airspace going in a million different directions."

Keeping in mind it was me and something like two other airman planes and 2 OU planes...no one staying in the pattern. At the most we had 5 aircraft leaving the airspace about 2 minutes apart from each other....sheesh!

That sooooo pissed me off. And the time he cleared me for a touch and go then the option and got pissed at me for doing a stop and go even after I told him that it would be a stop and go.

Not my favorite controller...

The lady was decent...she just had her moments. Really, what does it matter if I'm actually crossing the midpoint of the river or getting to the river? There was a break in the frequency and I decided that was a good time to jump in...get over it! And honestly, if I'm exactly midfield downwind when I call, great! But if there are other things going on and I don't get to call until I'm abeam the numbers then guess what...I didn't get a chance to chime in.

Most of the Westheimer controllers were more than helpful 90% of the time.

Just don't ask them for SVFR when it's 1200/2.5....sheesh :crying:

Okay...I feel better now.

-mini

 

[hoop]

I think I might have had a run in with that fella. I was coming up the VFR corridor, headed back to Wiley Post, and asked to proceed through his airspace. I was cleared, on altitude and right over I-35. Next thing I know, he's yelling at me that I'm too close to the airport. Can't win'em all I guess.

 

[minitour]

I think I might have had a run in with that fella. I was coming up the VFR corridor, headed back to Wiley Post, and asked to proceed through his airspace. I was cleared, on altitude and right over I-35. Next thing I know, he's yelling at me that I'm too close to the airport. Can't win'em all I guess.

Yeah he's impossible. And since the ILS was commissioned (is the GS "usable" yet?) it's even tougher to go down the corridor...it's like they want the entire area.

Oh well...OKC approach was always good to me...let me go right over TIK going to/from Stillwater...even with a mode c aparently inop...

-mini

 

[JonJohn82]

That's him. He's a nice guy on the ground though. He's very strict on how many folks are in the pattern. One day only two were allowed in.

The GS is up on the ILS 17 now.

 

[User546]

The GS is up on the ILS 17 now.

No kidding?? After two years of flying in and out of there, they finally got that ole box working?!

Will have to try that out Monday, it is "official" now right, not just working?

 

[minitour]

No kidding?? After two years of flying in and out of there, they finally got that ole box working?!

Will have to try that out Monday, it is "official" now right, not just working?

That's what I was wondering. It's been working for a while...but not "usable"...

-mini

 

[phantomdriver]

I get that I will check it out on monday.

 

[JonJohn82]

No kidding?? After two years of flying in and out of there, they finally got that ole box working?!

Will have to try that out Monday, it is "official" now right, not just working?

It's a true precision approach now. We've been shooting it since before August.

 

[User546]

The knucklehead I talked to on Friday must've been the same guy your referring to. Here's our conversation:

"Ground, Citation XXXX ready to taxi"
"Roger, Citation XXXX taxi to runway 21, departure freq is 135.42."
"Taxi Runway 21, XXXX"
** The moment we turn onto the taxiway (no where ever close to 21):
"Citation XXXX, contact departure."
"XXXX, you want us to contact departure?"
** About 5 seconds of silence on his end
"XXXX, contact departure."
(me in a confused voice) "Ok, we're contacting departure"
A few seconds of confusion in the cockpit - decided just to ignore him.
** At the end of the runway now
"Tower, Citation XXXX ready to go 21"
"Roger, Citation XXXX, position and hold."
** After holding in position for a couple minutes, he's assigned another airplane to land opposite direction our airplane. The airplane reports us on the runway, and the controller tells him just to do some 360's, cause it'll be another couple minutes before the Citation will get released...

Finally we're cleared to takeoff, and can you believe the guy never handed us off to Departure?? I guess he was just a little premature on the taxi out!

Anyways, usually those guys and gals are really squared away up there, but that guy was ate up that particular day! We couldn't get out of there quick enough!

 

[JonJohn82]

What time were you heading out? Was he hard to understand? It may have been Bill. He's.....

...and you should have let me know you were coming!

 

[User546]

What time were you heading out? Was he hard to understand? It may have been Bill. He's.....

...and you should have let me know you were coming!

Now that I think about it, it was actually Thursday not Friday. Been too many places this past week - my days are starting to blur. We were deaprting out of there around 530-600pm.

We were just flying thru, dropping off some passengers and heading onto the next place. One of those deals where you spend longer getting the clearance and taxi out, then you do actually at the airport!

 

[JonJohn82]

I was in the pattern around that time. I can't recall who was in the tower though.

 

[minitour]

eeeks...sometimes it was easier there to takeoff VFR and get our clearance from Departure...not sure if that's available to ya (ops wise), but on days like that...ya may want to give it a try...I was given a 5 minute clearance to shoot approaches one day working on my CFII...very interesting. Intercept this radial then to this fix and on to that VOR and fix here and radial to radial.... I filed OUN-IRW-OUN with an alternate at OKC and it said "practice approaches" in the remarks...I just don't get it sometimes.

Glad to hear the other pilot and you guys were on top of things...coulda been weird seeing someone land opposite direction.

-mini

 

[JonJohn82]

OUN tower is usually on top of things, but every now and then watch out.