Sonrise plans to build hangar

It’s been a year of expansion for Portland Municipal Airport. And more is planned for 2016.
Portland Board of Aviation on Wednesday approved a lease with Sonrise Aviation for land to allow the construction of a new hangar.
The board and Sonrise’s Hal Tavzel, who also serves as airport manager, came to the agreement for the 25-year lease, which allows until the end of 2017 for the hangar to be complete if construction begins by September. Tavzel hopes to have the project in motion well before that date, saying he’s looking at a May start with a goal of completion before the end of 2016.
 “That will be nice to see the hangar go up, and we appreciate your interest in expanding here,” said aviation board president Mike McKee.
Tavzel will pay rent of $350 for the first year of the lease on 16,248 square feet of land, with 1 percent increases to that total each of the next 24 years.
The plans call for a 70-foot by 75-foot hangar, for which Tavzel is currently acquiring quotes, with a 16-foot wide door to be built to the east of the existing hangars. That would be large enough to hold three planes.
“It’ll be full the moment it’s built,” Tavzel said.
He also plans to continue his lease of an existing airport hangar, which holds two planes.
Tavzel currently has three planes, all of which hold six passengers, on his charter certificate for Sonrise. He also manages two others, a twin-engine that carries eight passengers and a single engine.
“I’ve got a sense of urgency to grow because I’ve got planes scattered everywhere and no place to put them,” he said.
Tavzel came to Portland in 2005 as a charter pilot for Miller Aviation, and began efforts to form his own company in 2011. Sonrise as been in business for charters since 2013 and is now making five to seven flights a week.
“We’re flying cargo and passengers,” said Tavzel, a Louisiana native. “One flight may have three or four landings in different places.
“I don’t want to grow too fast, too quick. But we’ve tripled our volume since the start of this year. I’m pretty encouraged with how things are going.”
He hopes the construction of the new hangar will help the business grow, and said he plans to buy an addition plane once he has paid for the building. He’d also like to add an office near the new hangar, he said.
Expansion has been the theme for the airport this year after the Federal Aviation Administration in January approved a runway extension to 5,500 feet from the current 4,000. A justification study showed such an extension could lead to an increase of nearly 800 operations — take offs or landings — per year. That project is not expected to begin until at least 2017.
In June, the aviation board came to an agreement with Lutheran Air to have its medical helicopter stationed at the airport. The helicopter has been in Portland since Oct. 26 and has had 33 operations thus far, an average of about one per day. About half of those have been medical flights, with the rest part of training and/or public relations work.
The airport also began offering flight instruction this year for the first time since 2011, and Tavzel said both Sonrise and Miller Aviation are doing well.
“Both charter companies have had a lot of activity,” he said. “Lutheran Helicopter has been doing several operations a day … Flight instruction is going well. There’s been a lot of activity here.”
The board also approved payment of up to $1,000 to engineering firm Butler, Fairman and Seufert for work on the land survey for the Sonrise lease.
In other business, the board:
•Heard from Tavzel that the airport sold 5,009 gallons of fuel in October for a total of $20,237.72, up about $300 from October 2014. It had already sold nearly 6,000 gallons this month as of Wednesday.
•Decided to switch Internet service providers from CenturyLink to Comcast. Tavzel told the board Comcast provides better speed in addition to cost savings of $35 per month. There will be a one-time $29 set-up fee.
•Heard from Jason Clearwaters of Butler, Fairman and Seufert that because of “bean stubble” in the field west of the airport, shovel probes are necessary for the environmental study connected with the runway extension project. That work is scheduled to begin Monday.
•Raised the travel allowance for Butler, Fairman and Seufert for work on the airport layout plan to $2,700 from $2,200. Clearwaters also to the board the airport layout plan was submitted Nov. 15 to the Federal Aviation Administration.
•Submitted a grant payment request to the FAA for $9,495.
•Paid claims totaling $17,834.14.