Cleveland airport advisory board recommends limiting touch‑and‑go operations when four or more aircraft are in the pattern

The Cleveland Airport Advisory Board voted to recommend that airport supplement language be published stating that "touch and go operations are prohibited when 4 or more aircraft are operating in the traffic pattern," and will forward the advisory recommendation to Cleveland’s City Council for final approval.

Board Chairman Hugh MacFarlane opened a special meeting on traffic‑pattern safety and showed ADS‑B screenshots he said demonstrated moments when four to six aircraft were in the Runway 16 left‑traffic pattern. "I think 4 is a reasonable number," MacFarlane said, arguing a lower limit would be punitive to local flight schools and operators while a higher limit would fail to reduce congestion.

The airport manager, Eric, summarized outreach to tenants and flight schools. He said tenants largely supported taking action to reduce congestion and cited documented instances of seven to eight aircraft operating in the pattern at once. Flight schools agreed there is a problem but raised concerns about real‑time enforcement and the practicality for student pilots of counting pattern traffic; they suggested alternatives such as a prior‑permission (PPR) system, limiting nonbased training traffic, or using advisory language rather than a strict prohibition.

Board member Greg Modell recommended keeping the recommended cap at four aircraft and running the change as a 90‑day trial, with a reevaluation based on tenant and flight‑school feedback. Eric explained procedural timing: the submission must go through the airport’s procedural arm (described in the meeting as ADIP); if approved for publication the change would not take effect until roughly 60 days after publication, so a 90‑day test would begin from publication.

Members discussed other options, including limiting touch‑and‑go activity by time window, but several said fixed time windows would be impractical at a non‑towered, unscheduled general aviation field where pilots rely on opportunistic gaps for training. Board members also noted enforcement at an uncontrolled field is limited; the board expects compliance to be largely voluntary and self‑policed by pilots.

Greg Modell moved that the advisory board recommend the language Eric read; the motion was seconded and put to a voice vote. The board recorded the recommendation and noted the item will be presented to City Council, which has final authority to adopt airport supplement changes. The meeting adjourned after the referral.

Quotations in this account come from the meeting transcript and are attributed to the speakers as recorded. The transcript records the recommended wording and the board’s referral to the City Council; the transcript does not provide a complete roll‑call vote tally in named votes, only the voice‑vote recording and the recorded recommendation.