‘Airport of the Year’

The Custer County Airport received a top award last week when it was named Small General Aviation Airport of the Year by the S.D. Department of Transportation (SDDOT). The award, which goes to the best maintained airport of its size, was presented to airport manager Brenden Hendrickson last Wednesday at the opening of the SDDOT’s 36th annual airport conference held via Zoom teleconference.
The plaque commemorating the award was shown on camera during the presentation and delivered to Hendrickson Friday by state airport inspector Tom Koch. Because of high winds that day in Custer, Koch flew into Hot Springs and Hendrickson met him there.
The award was presented on the basis of an annual inspection conducted by Koch last summer. In the cover letter to the report, Koch said, “The airport looked excellent and very well maintained! There were no discrepancies.”
Because of that positive review, Hendrickson, who became the latest contractor for Custer County to maintain the daily operations of the airport in January 2019, said he was not especially surprised to receive the award.
“I put a lot of pride into this airport and most people can see that,” he said.
Hendrickson said, if all runway lights are not in working order when the inspection is conducted, the airport will be disqualified for the award. Although he said he checks them regularly—sometimes every day—he found three of them out the night before the inspection and made sure to get them changed.
Another area high on the list of criteria is mowing, something Hendrickson has made a priority of. When he took over there was no zero-turn mower at the airport so he asked the county commission for funding for one. To his delight the commission said yes and he bought a commercial grade model.  
“With that mower I can make this place look like a golf course and I mow a lot of areas that have never been mowed before,” he said.
Noting that he gets numerous compliments on the neatness of the airport, Hendrickson said he makes it a priority.
“This is the first impression they get of Custer,” Hendrickson said, adding that many people fly in (even by private charter) just to see Mt. Rushmore. He said he works with Dave’s World Tours which picks up passengers and transports them to Rushmore and other local attractions.
Hendrickson said keeping up appearances at the airport is important to him, as people don’t always notice when the parking lot is plowed or the bathroom is clean, but they will notice when they aren’t.
Another important aspect of Hendrickson’s job is to clear the runway and apron of snow in the event of needing to do a medical evacuation. There have been several times when he has just gotten the runway open and has received a call from the hospital about a medevac flight. Recently when Custer was inundated by a two-foot snowfall, the county highway department was called to help open the airport. (See the article in the March 24 edition of the Chronicle for details.)
“This is like the biggest parking lot in the county,” said Hendrickson.
Other areas scrutinized in the inspection include maintenance of fences (especially the wildlife fence which surrounds the 86-acre facility), taking care of the entrance road and eliminating trees and other obstacles on the approach slope.
Hendrickson expressed his thanks to his parents for their volunteer help. His mom, Mari, fills in at the airport office when he has to be gone and his dad, Roy, helps run the pickup snow plow.
He also thanked the State Aeronautics Commis-sion, the SDDOT team and local pilots such as John and Marci O’Connell who he said are always ready to run a snow shovel if needed.
Major improvements are in the works for the airport over the next several years. A group involving KLJ, the engineering firm retained by Custer County to work on airport improvements, completed the airport master plan last fall. The next step is to expand the size of the runway to accommodate larger aircraft and to make landings safer for smaller planes. The plan calls for adding 700 feet to the west end of the runway and to widen it 15 feet from the current 60 to 75 feet.  
Hendrickson said variable winds at the airport are an issue that widening the runway will help. He said with a wider runway, if a wind comes up while a small plane is landing “they would have just that much more pavement” to land safely.
One project this year is crack sealing of the runway which will extend its life by another five to seven years.
Hendrickson said the runway expansion will also allow for more hangars to be built. Currently there is room for construction of only two more hangars, but if one of the taxiways is extended, more hanger locations will be available.
Another project planned is installation of a GPS approach to allow aircraft to land using instruments in fog or heavy smoke. Hendrickson said the airport currently operates under Visual Flight Rules (VFR), meaning that planes can land only when conditions are clear.
Hendrickson said, using GPS technology, “the plane would almost land itself.” The project might be tied into the runway expansion because after that project the coordinates will change.
Over the last couple of years work has been done to improve the fuel situation at the airport. A bigger Jet A fuel tank was installed in 2018 and last year a state-of-the-art separator was put in.
“It’s basically a filtration system that takes any possible moisture out of the fuel,” he said.
A future project is to replace the 2,000-gallon avgas tank with a 10,000- gallon one. Hendrickson said doing so will open up buying options for avgas, as the airport can get a better price on the fuel by buying an entire tanker load.