NOTE: Editorial comments, regarding the airport, are directed at Town of Ocean City
management. Ocean City Airport businesses are excellent establishments, providing
great aviation services.

Editorial Comments

I'm tired.... I'm just tired.... It's exhausting banging your head against a brick
wall. But lobbying the Town of Ocean City is truly like banging your head against a
brick wall. They have seemingly pre-determined (albeit VERY inexperienced) opinions
on what the "environment" of a small general aviation should be like, and nothing
appears to be able to change their minds.

One thing that's been particularly amazing to watch over the last several years is the
extent to which the Town is willing to fight the airport "regulars". You'd think that
we were asking for permission to burn down the building, rather than wanting to
promote a strong grass-roots aviation community. They seem completely oblivious to
the fact that "regulars" not only have a regular presence at the airport, but that they're
also regular CUSTOMERS. Most of these CUSTOMERS spend thousands of dollars a
year at the Ocean City Airport.

There's no question that the success of a small general aviation airport is through a
combination of intelligent capital improvements, as well as a strong grass-roots pilot
community. But the Town of Ocean City wants to do it with spending alone. The taxpayers
of Ocean City don't deserve that, nor do the tenants/users (ie, CUSTOMERS) of the airport.

Why is it that the Director of Public Works, over and over again, hires airport managers with
absolutely NO aviation experience, and then expects good results? In addition, why do we
pay premium-level salaries, as though the manager had 20 or 30 years of aviation experience?
The Town of Ocean City spent 3 months pouring over 71 different resumes to find the "ideal"
director of the convention center, yet the airport has to settle for whatever miserable off-cast
the director of public works pulls from other town departments.
Do the taxpayers of Ocean City deserve that?

In the aviation world, it's common for airport "regulars" to hang around an operations
building. If you're an "aviation guy", and you're reading this page, you already know this.
That explains the existence of numerous of t-shirts and coffee mugs adorned with the
humorous term "Official Airport Bum". But the Town Council of Ocean City has voted to
consider the act of "hanging around" the operations building as "loitering" (with an assumed
threat of prosecution). Do the CUSTOMERS of Ocean City Airport deserve that?

Most of you know that one of the most common objects inside a hangar, besides the airplane
itself, and possibly an air compressor, is the venerable barbecue grill. Late afternoon cookouts
at someone's hangar, after a long day of flying, is an aviation tradition. But Town of Ocean
City has effectively outlawed them in an attempt to quash the activities and morale of the local
pilots. It's true that we can still have cookouts, but we can only have them in a remote,
mosquito-ridden field, away from the "aviation action". And only with the written permission
of the airport manager.

So, if all you're concerned with is visiting or hangaring your aircraft at an airport with
descent facilities and descent maintenance, then we're the airport for you...
If you want the full "general aviation experience", with lots of interaction between the pilot
community, then this isn't the place.