Clear skies at the airport
Updates to Yuba County Airport include new apron, taxiway to accommodate large aircrafts
Major things are taking off – and landing – at the Yuba County Airport, paving the way for larger jets to land with more amenities for businesses and users.
Tim Mccoy, Yuba County’s director of administrative services, purchasing agent and airport manager, said the Olivehurst airport completed a multi-million dollar apron project earlier this year that replaced 26,100 square yards of concrete – equivalent to 5.39 acres.
Total project cost for the apron was $4.5 million and was made possible through funding from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grants as well as loans and a grant from the Yuba Water Agency.
“A lot of jets come into the airport – people like Tim Mcgraw, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg – and they come in big jets,” Mccoy said. “With the opening of the Hard Rock
Casino, we expect more jet traffic coming here.”
An airport apron, also known as a ramp or tarmac, is the area of an airport where aircraft are parked, unloaded, loaded, refueled or boarded.
“Ticerhert and Mead & Hunt, the construction engineers, did a great job on the project,” he said. “I sent a notice of completion to the Yuba County Board of Supervisors in April.”
Annie Magnes is the office manager with Honeycutt Aviation, which is located at the airport, and said the apron is a huge benefit to the business and facility overall.
“We were excited when the project first started a couple years ago,” she said. “We have a wide variety of aircraft that can land here and many private citizens use their jets here — from the small ones to the big boys.”
Honeycutt Aviation is the airport’s fixed base operator, which provides fuel as well as a host of services including sales and maintenance of Beechcraft aircraft.
A&P Helicopters, Krueger Aviation, Yuba-sutter Aviation, REACH Air Medical Services, the Beale Aero Club and other private business are housed at the airport.
“We have a business on the southwest side of the airport that’s anxiously anticipating a new taxiway,” Mccoy said. “We’re in the process of designing and engineering that now and we should be starting it in the spring of 2020.”
He said the new taxiway project will cost about $1.7 million and will extend from the west end of Bravo Taxiway southward toward the end of the airport property.
“We have improved security at the airport and completely enclosed the fence line of the airport – it’s several miles of fencing, which we started about 12 years ago,” he said. “Soon, we will be installing three key locks on all the apron access points.”
A couple weeks ago, they finished renovating a wall at Aroma Catering, which has been at the airport for a couple of years.
“It looks absolutely gorgeous and and they’re in the process of opening it,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity for the pilots who come to the airport and need a place to eat or hang out while they’re there.”
Mccoy said an FAA project on the northeast side will see the replacement of communications towers.