October Air Event In Works For UC Regional Airport

The Upper Cumberland Regional Airport will continue discussions with a promoter who wants to begin an October event.

Airport Manager Dean Selby said the Florida-based promoter has been involved with major air shows. Selby said he did not want to reveal his name until they were further long in negotiating an agreement.

The promoter wants to work with the airport with a $10,000 upfront fee and 10 percent of the event’s ticket sales.

“I think this would be good because he has the contacts I don’t have,” Selby said. “He’s done got it set up to where we can get a control tower in here for that for that period of time and some other stuff. So he comes with some pretty good recommendations. Aaron (Tippin) knows him and Aaron recommended him to to us. And that this would be that he puts on he does a really good, good job with this kind of stuff.”

Cookeville Mayor Ricky Shelton proposed using $30,000 out of the airport’s event fund to serve as seed money for the event. That budgeted money is set aside to bring community members to the airport. Chairman Randy Porter asked Selby to come up with a budget for the event before the July meeting.

A tentative October 22-23 date has been set for the event. Selby said it would be beyond a traditional air show with entertainment, exhibits and things for people to do.

“He says he don’t think we need to do what the traditional air show and get an aerobatics box and everything else, because some of the new rules on some of this aerobatic boxes in the distance from the crowds and stuff, he thinks it would be difficult,” Selby said. “And I do, too. If you remember, we had to ask people to not be in their house that day and things like that. Let’s just avoid that. This will just be there’s a lot of stuff you can do without classifying you at an air show as classifying it a flying. You still do military exhibition. You can still do flyovers.”

Selby said the promoter hopes to attract 10-15,000 people.

In other business, the Airport sold more than 36,500 gallons of fuel in May, setting a new record for the facility. Selby said the number of gallons beat the old record by some 5,000 gallons. Last May, the airport sold 17,239 gallons.

Selby said these kinds of fuel sales are creating shortage issues. At one point last week, Selby said the airport had pumped all the jet fuel out of its ground tanks and had just the fuel left in the truck.

The airport board approved the purchase of a new fuel truck which will be delivered in July.

Also Tuesday night, the airport received its annual audit, reporting no issues with the airport’s operations.