In a holding pattern

Forty years after its dedication, leaders and supporters of Culpeper Regional Airport believe clear skies are on the horizon despite tough economic times.
Members of the Airport Advisory Committee and other community leaders gathered Wednesday to informally mark the occasion with cake, coffee and conversation.

Originally named T.I. Martin Field for a former mayor instrumental in getting the project off the ground, the airport supplemented and eventually replaced a smaller, unpaved airfield south of town. That site is now the Country Club of Culpeper’s golf course.

The airport opened in 1969 with a 3,200-foot-long runway and a single terminal and office building. Today, the airport has a 5,000-foot runway and about a dozen hangars and other buildings.
About 400 people gathered in the newly constructed terminal for the dedication ceremony, according to a story in the Star-Exponent Nov. 17, 1969. U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr. was the event’s key speaker. Although Byrd lauded Culpeper for the achievement, he also used the occasion to express “errors of judgment” in the Vietnam War.

Back in 1969, Byrd and other leaders said smaller general aviation airports are an important part of the country’s transportation infrastructure. Today’s leaders agree, although they say the concept has shifted somewhat from what was envisioned back then.

Last week, members of the Airport Advisory Committee and other leaders shared their thoughts on the airport’s present and the future.

Very light jet concept
Airport manager Tonya Woodward says the airport has and will continue to play an important role in the county. For a small general aviation airport like Culpeper, she said, the sole measure of success is not in the size of the planes that people see in the skies.

“Being general aviation, we’re non-hub,” Woodward said. “So we’re not going to have the larger airplanes to take you places. However, there’s so many more things that general aviation does.”
Those things, she explained, include medical transport, flight instruction and even occasional cargo transport.

Woodward said a smaller, less busy airport that’s close to a small community like Culpeper is also attractive to businesses of all sizes. As an example, Woodward said when Culpeper’s Lowe’s store was under consideration, and then under construction, company executives used the airport frequently.

“If they had to utilize Warrenton or if they had to go to Charlottesville, Lowe’s may very well not be in Culpeper,” she said.

When it comes to transportation, Woodward said the airport’s future will probably not include the presence of a commercial airline. Instead, she hopes that Culpeper will be home to a segment of the very light jet market.

Under that concept, small, single-pilot jets that seat about 10 people would be used to ferry passengers up to 500 miles to specific destinations or larger hub airports. Supporters say travelers would find such an arrangement attractive, because many of the unfavorable parts of air travel like security hassles and long flight delays would be reduced or even completely eliminated.

“That’s what we were envisioning,” Woodward said. “We wanted you to be able to come in here, go to a destination say within 300 to 500 miles, and you wouldn’t have to go to Dulles and do the whole Dulles thing with the baggage and all that kind of stuff.

“We could search people and get them on the plane in half the time. You would be in a smaller plane and be with your family and maybe a couple other people instead of 300 people that you don’t necessarily know. That’s where we’d like to see things going for us in the future.”

‘Good ideas’ on hold
Forced off the radar due to funding and a sour economy, plans to construct a new terminal building are on hold. While the existing building is safe and functional, it’s filled to capacity and there’s no room to expand to allow extra services or programs, according to airport representatives.

County Administrator Frank Bossio, a retired Navy pilot, said the design for the new terminal is nearly complete but that the timeline for construction of the approximately $2.2 million project is not set.

“We agreed with the state that since Orange County was ready to go, that the state would fund that terminal first rather than trying to fund two terminals simultaneously,” Bossio said. “Due to the nature of this recession, we will revisit our plans as we go along.”

The committee expects about 98 percent of the funding to come from state and federal sources.

Asked if Culpeper might one day have regular commercial air service, committee chairman Bill Flathers, a United Airlines pilot who also runs an avionics research and development firm, said he wasn’t certain.

“That remains to be seen,” he said. “Having commercial service here, you really need to have a very solid and able population base to warrant the investment in the ground infrastructure and the scheduling to make that a viable option. But to me, that’s not a sign of success or advancement.”

What does make sense, he said, is what’s best for the community.

“I wouldn’t say we aspire to be like Charlottesville,” he continued. “I can see us really trying to pattern and fashion the airport after a model that would be good for Culpeper, and that might not be exactly what Charlottesville has.”

When the economic crisis eventually subsides, Flathers hopes Culpeper will have the means to bring some new ideas to fruition.

“I think we’ve got some good plans and some good ideas and we’re sort of pausing right now like a lot of other segments of the community to sort of catch our breath and wait for things to pick up again,” he said.

Business sense
Committee member Mike Dale, who’s been flying for nearly 60 years, said the additional space and opportunity a new terminal would bring will be the key to keeping Culpeper an attractive location to do business.

“If we’re going to develop the business aviation side of this, we need decent facilities,” Dale said. “That’s the first thing that anybody sees of Culpeper. If you get somebody to step out of his airplane or her airplane that wants to do business here, the way we look — you know what first impressions are like for all of us — the terminal is a long-term requirement to make sure that the gateway to Culpeper is everything we’d want it to be. That gives an impression of the county.”

And the way visitors are treated does too.

Dale, who has helped organized Culpeper’s annual AirFest for several years, said he consistently hears that from participants and spectators. Held last month, the event celebrated its 10th anniversary.

“The air show has come really from just being three or four airplanes flying in here to being something now where we’re attracting people from as far away as New Jersey. That’s because of the way they get treated. To me, as somebody who’s only lived here for nine years, that’s an absolutely important part of Culpeper.”

“If you look at the community spirit, that’s what’s created the air show,” he continued. “The bottom line is, the reason they do it — it sounds a little corny — but there is a Culpeper spirit, a community spirit.”