Interested Parties Have Until October 6th To Make Their Thoughts Known

The public comment period on the FAA’s proposed hangar-use policy remains open until October 6, and EAA is encouraging its members to add their comments to the nearly 2,000 that have been sent to the agency thus far.

“EAA has put together a very comprehensive position incorporating ideas from the full breadth of EAA membership for not only protecting the active assembly of aircraft at airports that receive FAA grant funding, but also restoration and maintenance of airplanes,” EAA Chairman Jack J. Pelton said in a video regarding the hangar-use policy. (Watch below) “We think these encompass all the EAA activities that should be protected in airport hangars, along with the use of hangars for such aviation organizations as our EAA chapters that use facilities at an airport to support aviation.”

EAA’s recommendations for the FAA hangar-use policy include four primary points:

• The FAA’s proposed policy be revised to replace the word “final” with “active” in the description of permissible assembly of aircraft within a hangar so that it states, “Active assembly of aircraft.”
• The section explaining storage of incidental non-aeronautical items in hangars be reworked to expand the permissible use to more than an “insignificant amount of hangar space.” The reality is that there is a fixed number of aircraft that can be placed in a hangar, and there is often significant space around them and underneath the wings that can be utilized.
• Hangar-use policy should be revised to include tenancy of community-based, not-for-profit, and non-profit aviation organizations as an accepted aeronautical hangar use, such as EAA chapters.
• The FAA should formally recognize the judgment of local airport management in matters of evaluating appropriate aeronautical use for hangars in the airport mangers’ communities.

Those who wish to comment to the FAA’s proposed hangar-use policy may do so online through the Regulations.gov website. As always, concise and thoughtful comments have the best chance of being considered by policymakers.

EAA is also working with lawmakers on Capitol Hill regarding this policy, so they are aware of the ramifications and can act in the event that the final policy does not address the concerns of the recreational aviation community.

FMI: www.eaa.org