CHAPTER ONE
Why?
I believe in America.
When I came to this country, I was under the impression that if I worked hard, followed the rules, did my job to the best of my ability, minded my own business, and behaved with honesty, loyalty, and decency, I would succeed and thrive.
Then,
- In the summer of 2013, when I was graduating from Iowa Western Community College from their Aviation Maintenance program (A&P Mechanic), I approached Danny, the Council Bluffs Municipal Airport manager at the time, to ask about renting a newly built (and vacant for months) large hangar across the ramp from the school. I expressed my intention to open a small airplane maintenance shop. He said in no uncertain terms, and with a little smirk on his face, that “I could try asking the airport board, but it was very unlikely they would let me do it, since that would put me in direct competition with Advanced Air”. I did not know then that Advanced Air was owned by his daughter, but of course I understood how this system works. That’s how it is in the country I came from.
- Later that same year, I was trying to re-start the Nebraska Flight Center at Eppley; there hadn’t been a flight school here for years. I had a very welcoming experience from TACAir. In August 2013 I rented a small office and spent $120,000 in the purchase of our Redbird FMX Advanced Aviation Training Device (sim). TACAir informed me that, as a formality, I had to be approved by the Omaha Airport Authority (the entity that manages two airports in Omaha, including Eppley).
- When I approached the Omaha Airport Authority (OAA), thinking that since there was no flight school at Eppley, they would welcome me with open arms. We honestly thought they would be impressed by our team. After all, our Chief Flight Instructor, Bob Meder, was the Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Flight Instructors, and one of the best instructors in the country. We instead were received with one of the most hostile attitudes I have encountered in my many years in business, under the guise of “due diligence”.
- The very first question we were asked by Stan Kathode at our first meeting with the OAA, after the initial pleasantries was: “Why would you want to start a flight school here, when there are already well established schools at Millard and Council Bluffs?”. There are many ways to ask a question. To put it mildly, this question was asked in a very unpleasant way (more like “what the f***k are you doing here?” or “who the f***k do you think you are?”)
- Stan Kathode and the OAA then expressed concern about the “safety issues” of increased traffic at Eppley and the congestion of air traffic control services. Which shows their absolute ignorance of how air traffic control and the FAA regulations and procedures worked at the time. After all, these people are not pilots. (Please see Chapter TWO: Safety and Air Traffic Control).
- The Omaha Airport Authority put me through a grueling approval process during which it was many times expressed to me, in different ways, that I was not welcome here (they even required me to provide to them “proof of ownership” of my “fabulous simulator” (*), among many other intrusive and cumbersome requirements). (*) (that’s how Stan Kathode sarcastically referred to my Redbird FMX AATD). I wonder if he thought I was lying about owning my fabulous simulator, or maybe he thought that I stole it?
- My good friend and Chief Flight Instructor, Bob Meder (have I mentioned that he was then, and until a few months ago, the Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Flight Instructors, and one of the best instructors in the country?), was so unhappy with the way we were treated by Stan Kathode and the Omaha Airport Authority, that he wrote a letter (see entry “140110 Nonplussed”), that we never delivered because we didn’t want to make them dislike us any more than they already did.
- Even TACAir’s local management and their Texas corporate office were perplexed by the unusual requests and intrusive and cumbersome requirements that Stan Kathode and the OAA were making. I have emails that reflect this.
- Finally, after 6 months, I decided to hire a lawyer to continue negotiations, and they quickly recommended to their board of directors to approve our request, in February of 2014.