A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Clay Lacy Aviation is currently involved in two major projects that represent a major investment by the Los Angeles-based company and will vastly increase the scope of its operations.

 


In December, it expects to break ground on its new permanent FBO at John Wayne-Orange County Airport (KSNA). In August, 2020 Clay Lacy (Booth 4800)&nbsp;was selected to replace Atlantic Aviation as a service provider at the airport and has since operated from a temporary facility at KSNA.

 


The new $95 million complex will be built in two phases, with the first consisting of a new terminal and a pair of 37,800-sq-ft hangars, which is expected to open early in 2024. The second phase, due for completion by mid-2025, will add a pair of 35,000-sq-ft hangars.

 


Those new hangars will be built with an eye toward future-proofing them for larger aircraft and taller tails. “If you look at every manufacturer, the planes that they are making today are substantially larger than they were 20 years ago, and a lot of the hangars that were built in the past are not big enough to accommodate the latest, largest business jets,” said Scott Cutshall, the company’s senior v-p of development and sustainability. The under-development Dassault Falcon 10X will have a tail height of 27 feet&nbsp;7 inches.

 


Yet, under current NFPA guidelines, Group 2 (business aviation) hangars can’t exceed the current 28-foot-high door opening limit without being placed into Group 1 and its more complex fire-protection requirements.

 


“We’re planning to have 29-foot doors,” said Cutshall. “We’re building in a valance that will be able to be removed at a later time, so the opening will be 28 feet until such time as the industry is able to convince the authorities to make changes.”

 


On the other side of the country, Clay Lacy has already begun construction on its facility at Waterbury-Oxford Airport (KOXC) in Connecticut. That location is expected to come online in early 2024&nbsp;and will feature a total of 120,000 sq ft of hangar space, which when complete, will help alleviate the region’s shortage of aircraft shelter.

 


“There’s been a lot of discussion about new hangars being built in White Plains, new hangars being built in Teterboro, and other airports in the surrounding area, but this is really happening, said David “Buddy” Blackburn, Clay Lacy’s senior v-p for KOXC FBO operations. “The buildings are going up, so that’s a big deal for the Northeast for sure.”

 


The facility’s four 40,000-sq-ft hangars will also feature 29-foot-high doors, but unlike the KSNA location, Clay Lacy already has a waiver for them from the local building officials based on winter snow load deflection on the hangar roof and the increasing tail heights.

 


The company already operates an FAA Part 145 repair station at Oxford, based out of a 50,000-sq-ft hangar in the Atlantic Aviation complex. It has not yet decided if it will relocate it into its own facility once it opens.

 


Combined, the two locations represent an investment of $136 million by the company, and, as both are in high-demand areas, they are starting to attract tenants. At KOXC it already has letters of intent from the operators of four large Gulfstreams and two Bombardier Globals and expects to field more inquiries this week at NBAA-BACE 2022. According to Cutshall, the facilities will be among the first FBOs to incorporate charging infrastructure for eVTOL and electric aircraft in their designs.

 


Though the opening of either location is months&nbsp;if not years away, the company has already established scholarship programs with local aviation education institutions, to attract talent.

 


At its two existing FBOs in California, Clay Lacy receives continuous supplies of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from World Fuel and is on track to sell more than&nbsp;200,000 gallons this year. “The plan is that we will offer SAF at Oxford as it becomes commercially available,” Cutshall told AIN. “It’s the future of our industry, it’s the right thing to do. More and more people are buying it, and as production and availability increases, I think adoption will continue to increase.”

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