A great example of taxpayers wondering exactly just who pays for what might be right here at Wittman Regional Airport. “Unless they rent a hangar or other space, or buy fuel from Basler Flight Service or Orion Flight Services, Winnebago County taxpayers do not fund any significant part of the projects at the Wittman Regional Airport. At the federal, state, and local level, the money used to fund airport improvements here, are generated by the industry itself, not taxpayers,” said Airport Director Peter Moll. “Wittman is a self-sustaining airport.”

It starts with the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program, which pays 90-percent of the project’s cost and receives its money from federal taxes on airline tickets and aviation fuel. Each year the FAA gives an Airport Improvement Program (AIP)  block grant to the Wisconsin Bureau of Aeronautics. In allocating this money to Wisconsin airports that have applied, the state pays another 5 percent of the project cost with money from state aviation fees.

Getting hypothetical, if a project costs $4 million, the FAA pays $3.6 million and the State of Wisconsin pays another $200,000. Wittman pays the remaining 5 percent from its “reserve fund,” which Moll described as a savings account generated by the frugal use of airport income, like hangar rent and truck parking fees.

If the airport’s 5 percent share is more than local funding can handle, “we turn to municipal bonds,” said Moll. “Either way, there’s little-to-no economic impact on the residents of Winnebago County.”  Directly or indirectly, taxpayers reap the benefits of improvements to Wittman at no cost.

The system, created by the Winnebago County IT department, is based on that used by the County Facility & Property Management Department. A central database tracks all aspects of maintenance, from what’s broken to the time and money it took to fix it.

In drop-down boxes, airport tenants will report what’s broken, from a broken cable on a hangar door to a burned out bulb in a taxiway sign, and where it is. The system sends the request to the maintenance department and e-mails a tracking number to the tenant making the report.

Besides expediting repairs, the new maintenance requisition system tracks employee time, what needs repairs, and what it costs to fix them. Not only will this help the airport budgeting process, it will identify—and remedy—chronic problem areas, says Moll, like worn out circuit breakers that trip when they shouldn’t.

The machine pictured here is not a Tim Burton nightmare. It’s an eight-row corn chopper, displayed by Riesterer & Schnell. It’s about 8 feet deep, and in that distance it converts eight rows of standing corn into quarter-inch bites of cow feed. Attention getting sticker prices are another thing ag shares with aviation; this rig is a quarter of the way to seven figures. There’s even more fascinating technology in the exhibit hangars, which the participants described as “barns.”

More than 400 vendors exhibited at the 52nd annual Farm Show, which charges no public admission. (Parking is $3, and and the lots were a sea of pickup trucks from Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, South Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, and Missouri.) They filled all four “barns” and the outside yard between them. A seed company rep said there was a waiting list for exhibit space. She said attendance was down a bit, but with this year’s early spring, “a lot of farmers are already out in their fields.”

Hungry after learning about such things as transponders for cows, essential in automated milking parlors, the precision of the GPS-controlled equivalent of an airplane’s flight management system, and how its works, for example, with a no-till planter that clears away last season’s residue, digs the seed trench, places the seed at the proper depth, adds just the right amount of fertilizer, and then fills the trench, it was time to find the food tent.

Local groups offered savory and affordable fare. On one side the Winnebago County Holstein Association sold grilled cheese sandwiches as fast as they could make them, and on the other the Wisconsin Potatoes group served them baked, with all the toppings. The Wisconsin Cattleman’s Association, Wisconsin Pork Association, and Wisconsin Bison Association served their respective protein.

Passion is another thing common to both aviation and agriculture, as is friendliness. Exhibitors and participants alike honestly seemed to appreciate the opportunity to explain the inner workings to a curious sightseer, and it all made for an exciting, educational, fulfilling day at Wittman Regional Airport.

Winners of the 2012 Wittman Regional Airport Writing Contest are first row, from left, Charlie Busha, Lili Alderson, and Grace Phillip; second row, contest co-organizer Rob Mark, CEO of CommAvia, Rashid Coulibaly, Grace Hutchinson, MacKenzie Warner, and Airport Director and co-organizer Peter Moll.

Earlier this year the Wittman Regional Airport challenged students at Oshkosh area schools to describe, in 500 words or less, their favorite aviation adventure whether it be past, present, or future. Nearly four dozen students responded with poignant prose and poetry, and the winners, listed below, gathered at the airport to receive their awards from Airport Director Peter Moll on March 20.

Students competed in two categories, grades 6 to 8 and high school. Middle schoolers were the bulk of the entries with a smattering of elementary and high school submissions. The judges were James Fitzhenry, managing editor of the Oshkosh Northwestern, Barb Benish, adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and Scott Spangler, a nationally known aviation journalist.

Courtesy of the Fox Valley Technical College, the first-place high school scribe will spend an hour over Oshkosh in a Cessna 172 with a flight instructor, and the winning grade school writer will spend an hour with an instructor in the FVTC flight simulator with its wrap-around visual system. The second-place writers received a $35 gift card, the third-place writers received a $25 gift card, and the honorable mentions received a $15 Subway gift card.

The high school students were busy testing, but parents and principals and family members applauded all the others as they received their awards. And one writer, third grader Gracie Hutchinson, proudly introduced the subject of her essay, her grandfather, Milon Hutchinson, a B-25 pilot who wore his World War II flight jacket.

All the winning work is available on the Wittman Regional Airport website (www.WittmanAirport.com), where the announcement of the second annual writing contest will be posted in January 2013.

Winners 2012 Wittman Airport Writing Contest

High School

First: Breanna Paulson—Oshkosh North High School: My First Time Traveling Up in the Sky

Second: Keegan Flynn—Oshkosh North High School: My Aviation Story

Grade School

First: Grace Phillip—6th Grade—Perry Tipler Middle School: Forever Flight

Second: Lili Alderson—5th Grade—Read Elementary School: An Airplane Brings Me Home

Third: Rashid Coulibaly—8th Grade—Merrill Middle School: Flying To My Life

Honorable Mentions

Charlie D. Busha—6th Grade—South Park Middle School: Flying

Gracie Hutchinson—3rd Grade—Read Elementary School: My Grandfather is an Extra Special Pilot

MacKenzie Warner—7th Grade—Carl Traeger Middle School: F=V+C Flying = Viewing Nature + Connecting with Friends and Family

When Steve Wittman tinkered with the aircraft he designed and built, surely he focused more on winning his next race, not building the legacy that awes us today. Nostalgia contributes to this awe. Steve’s original hangar, where he made history by doing his daily job, has passed into memory.

History’s stage lives on in many surprising forms, often hiding in plain sight, an epiphany revealed while on vacation in Key West, Florida, last year. Missing the tour time at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, we ambled across the street to Kelly’s Caribbean Bar, Grill and Brewery.

What drew my attention was the silhouette of a Sikorsky S-42, a huge four-engine flying boat designed and built for Pan Am in 1931. In those days, commercial air travel was a romantic adventure with the Pan Am Clippers winging their way to Asian, South American, and Caribbean destinations.

It turned out that the buildings that now shelter Kelly’s were the birthplace of Pan American Airlines. The first flight from the headquarters was rained out (okay, the airport flooded) so a seaplane was brought to the docks to complete Pan American Airlines Flight #1 to Cuba.

Unfortunately, we’d eaten lunch a couple of hours before, and had just polished a bottle of water, so I can’t say how good the food and beer (handcrafted in the southernmost US microbrewery) was. But I’ll get back there someday soon, intent on discovering more history. Until then, I’m doing it every day at Wittman Airport.

Peter Moll

When you add the two other runways, the taxiways, and ramps, the crew must clear over 75 million square feet of pavement to FAA standards that cover everything from aircraft braking coefficient and snow bank height to mutual aid access roads and gates for aircraft rescue and fire fighting.

Snow removal is a choreographed effort that involves two 18-foot plows,  a 12-foot rollover plow, a 12-foot plow, a 9-foot blower, and an end loader with a blade instead of a bucket, says Airport Operations Manager John Dorcey. Who leads depends on Mother Nature.

Last winter was huge and heavy, so plows led the way, followed by the blower, which throws the snow over the runway lights. This winter has been light and dry, perfect work for an 18-foot rotary broom, he says. Or it would have been if it hadn’t expired at a point where it cost more to fix than to replace. 

A new broom truck, like the one pictured above, was in the works, says Airport Director Peter Moll. Disbursed by the state Bureau of Aeronautics, the FAA provides funds for 80 percent of such purchases, and Wittman had approval for a new truck with a 20-foot broom 48 inches in diameter. 

When the county arrived with its 20 percent, it learned that the FAA had cut back on the funds. So Wittman is pursuing county approval for bonds to cover the 80 percent, because the broom is an critical weapon against the snow. At many airports, brooms start work when the first flakes fall. Green Bay, for example, has three brooms and three plows.

Attacking light and dry snow with a plow doesn’t so much move it as compress it, turning it into ice that’s packed into the grooved pavement, says Dorcey. When that happens, they have to apply chemicals to achieve the required braking action. Using sand is the last and least desired option. It provides the necessary friction, but its abrasive nature does bad things to propellers and jet engine turbine blades.

In terms of time, money, and effectiveness, a broom is the best way to remove light and dry snow and clean up after plows that have moved the heavy wet stuff. Chemicals work, but they aren’t free, and neither is the fuel required to cover Wittman’s 75 million square feet of pavement.

Winnebago Flying Club, which has called Wittman Regional Airport home for roughly three decades, is now accepting new members, says Tim Lemke, president. In its 12 for 2012 membership drive, the club welcomes active and lapsed pilots, and those who want to become pilots.

Four club members are flight instructors, says Lemke, one of the four, and another, Keith Myers, is a designated examiner who gives FAA pilot checkrides. Everyone flies the club’s 150-hp Cessna 172, which is certified for instrument flight and sports a new Garmin 430 GPS navigator and radio.

The Winnebago Flying Club meets monthly, and an educational and/or social activity follows the business meeting. Monthly dues are $30, and there is a $150 membership fee. The club’s 172 goes for $79 an hour wet, meaning gas is included.

A not-for-profit organization, Lemke says the majority of the airplane’s hourly fee pays for gas. A website handles the airplane’s schedule. Given its membership limit, conflicts are few, Lemke says, aside from a few serene summer evenings and weekends. For more information, visit the club website.

When these fuels will be consumer-ready at airports nationwide is unknown, but it won’t be long. Earlier this year, at the Paris Air Show, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said,“I think we’re nearing a tipping point” in terms of building momentum toward use of biofuel on commercial flights, he said. “I think [biofuel powering airline flights is] not long-term. In the short term you’ll see the benefits.”

For airports, the important question will be, however, how will the introduction of new fuels affect the fuel farm, the bulk storage area where the FBOs’ trucks refill their tanks? With both fuels still in test and validation stages, we’ve been unable to find any newly proposed handling requirements, so we’ll peer into the crystal ball of logic.

Many of the jet flights have been made on a blended mixture of bio and petroleum-based fuel. This suggests that both fuels have like storage and handling requirements, so the transition from one to the other may not require new equipment or facilities.

Things don’t look so bright for avgas, primarily because of the ingredient that led to the new fuel’s requirement—lead. Storing and/or distributing no-lead avgas in anything once used for 100LL offers the chance of contaminating the new fuel with the substance the EPA is trying to get rid of. Right now there is no hard date for the avgas change, but forewarned is well prepared, and we’ll keep an eye on its development.

All we want kids in grades 3-12 to do over their break is think a bit … about aviation … and telling stories about aviation to be specific. 

We wondered what kids think when someone mentions flying.

An interesting trip on an airliner?
A ride in a small airplane?
A career in aviation?
Building their own airplane?
A first flight they’ve yet to take?

No matter what someone’s aviation interest might be, we’d like to hear their story in 500 words or less … after the holidays … when they enter the airport’s Writing Contest for Oshkosh-Area Grade & High-Schoolers. We want kids to tell us – in their own words – what makes flying and aviation special to them. The contest is open to all Oshkosh-area students in either of two categories – grade school (grades 3-8) or high school (grades 9-12), but not both. Each category will include a first, second and third place winner to be announced by March 1, 2012. All winning entries will be published on the Wittman Airport blog.

Contest details can be found under the What’s Your Story button on the airport’s home page.

Entries must be delivered electronically not later than 6 PM, Monday, February 6, 2012. Stories received after the deadline will not be considered.

Prizes will be awarded in a ceremony at Wittman Airport’s terminal building on March 15^th, 2012 and include – a local airplane flight, an hour in a professional flight training simulator and even Visa gift cards worth up to $35.

So get started on your essay … right after the Christmas break. And tell your friends.

The Wittman Airport Writing Contest was conceived to promote solid writing and communication skills in kids, a necessary element for success in today’s workplace.

The contest is sponsored by the airport, as well as Fox Valley Technical College, in cooperation with the Oshkosh Area School District.

Questions may be directed to rmark@wittmanairport.com

A study in perpetual motion with an ever-present smile separating his neatly trimmed beard and mustache, he’s responsible for everything “inside the fence,” he says, the runways, taxiways, their lights and signs, and the buildings on the ground around them. In his spare time he teaches people to fly and serves several aviation groups.

Dorcey’s aviation career began at age 8, when his father paid a penny a pound for the youngster’s first airplane ride at Janesville’s old  City Airport. The U.S. Air Force took him away from his Wisconsin birthplace for just over six years. A missile systems analyst, a healthy re-up bonus paid for his pilot training.

“I was in North Dakota, and there wasn’t a lot to do there,” Dorcey says of his Grand Forks duty station, so “I drove down the road to the airport and started flying like crazy.” He became a private pilot in 1971. When he got out of the Air Force in April 1975, he was an instrument-rated, multiengine  commercial pilot and flight instructor with 700 flight hours.

Flying jobs were scarce then, so Dorcey followed the advice given by the chief pilot for Johnson Wax, who said a pilot who was also an airframe and powerplant mechanic never has to look for a job. He earned his A&P at Janesville’s Blackhawk Technical College in 1977. He also earned his instrument instructor rating and worked as a flight instructor.

Afterwards Dorcey flew freight for awhile, and then people in a DC-3 out of Rockford, Illinois, where he earned his DC-3 type rating and airline transport pilot certificate. Later, he added an inspection authorization of the A&P ticket. He’s always taught people to fly, and it was among his flying duties at a Janesville FBO, until he joined Wisconsin’s DOT in 1985.

For nearly three-quarters of his 22-year career with the state Bureau of Aeronautics Dorcey traveled the state teaching seminars and clinics for pilots and mechanics. He spent the last five or six years working with the state’s airports, advising them on operations, land-use zoning, and the ins and outs of airport improvement grants.

In 2007, Dorcey followed his wife, Rose, to Oshkosh, where she took a position with EAA, an organization he’s belonged to since 1972. Peter Moll had just been promoted to Wittman airport director, moving his responsibilities outside the airport fence, like working with city, county, state, and federal officials. So Dorcey applied for—and won—the open position.

Flexibility is the key to success, Dorcey says, “use your skills and talents and provide those to people as you can.” Beyond his day job, he’s a charter member, secretary/treasurer, and webmaster of the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame. (Rose, also a pilot, is president.) And he’s secretary and a director of the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators.

He’s also a member of AOPA, Women in Aviation, the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators and the Wisconsin Airport Management Association, who elected him a director after he left the DOT and, two years ago, its vice president. “Aviation, for 52 years, has always been a big thing in my life,” he says, adding that he’s always been a big believer in giving back, whenever the opportunity arises.