![]() It's 11:15 … I've been busy since I got up at 7.Ask a question Submit memes/shitposts Hide Spoilers Daily Question Thread | Read our Wiki | Join our Discord | 2022 GotY Results | Send a ModMail Just because we're out here in the middle of a pasture, don't think we're lonely. On those occasions when it's just Cooper and his airport dog, he has projects, runs his business of operating the facility, builds airplanes from kits and has friends help him put the planes together. I just had four people leave and I've got another visitor sitting here right now." One word to the wise: If you drop by for a visit, or land to fill your tank, don't ever accuse Cooper of being alone, or lonely. Even so, what workers are present are several hundred yards from Cooper and Piper's home at the terminal. The FAA is installing new runway lights at the WInkler County field. Cooper, though, is enjoying a little more company these days. It would seem a lonely job, yourself and a dog 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with only the occasional out-of-town visitor. The Pecos native worked at Dallas Love Field, Tulsa International and Denver Stapleton before returning to West Texas in 1984. That's ,400 to fill up your airplane every four hours."Ĭooper has spent most of his adult life working in operations. If you have a small single engine airplane and you want to fly to grandma's house in Atlanta, it'll take you, say, 60 gallons at ,6 or ,7 a gallon. "It's just kinda the way things are right now. "People who fly small planes are often paycheck to paycheck people and with the price of fuel what it is they're not flying," he said. With 9/11 and the current price of oil, that number has gone down. Most air travel, Cooper added, is the general aviation type private pilots on business trips or weekends away. The majority are like Winkler County, run by an operations manager who will help you when you land but often doesn't know you're coming till you're there. There are 5,500 private airports in the country, Cooper said, and only 400 of them are controlled. "I haven't been snookered yet," Cooper said. Private pilots are prone to fuel thievery. Drive offs, or fly offs in this case, are never a problem. On those occasions when Cooper runs to Kermit to the post office or the grocery store in Kermit, he'll hang a "Back Soon" sign on the door for pilots who touch down for a fill up. "You fly out to Phoenix or the West Coast and it goes for ,7 a gallon," he said. Aviation fuel is not exempt, but when private pilots land at the Winkler County airport, they may be in for a pleasant surprise: Cooper's per gallon cost for aviation fuel is currently ,5.56. It just doesn't look busy but it is."īusy is relative, of course, but there's no mistaking that Cooper's clientele count has shrunk lately with the upward mobility of the price of oil. ![]() We may have a plane land, fill up, and leave, then 10 minutes later another plane will land, fill up and leave, and then 10 minutes later, same thing. Now, he and Piper live on the grounds 24/7. Cooper says it became tiresome to repeatedly journey from house to work every time a pilot would land after hours needing fuel so he asked the county if he could permanently take up residence at the airport. ![]() Until a few years ago, Cooper lived in Kermit and would drive out to work every morning, a 10 mile one-way drive into the scruffy brush land of Winkler County. The price of oil has put the skids not only on the more grounded consumers, but on private pilots as well. They often find themselves waiting for customers, which lately have been few and far between. Cooper and his canine companion are the full-time proprietors at the WInkler County Airport.
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