CAPE SKIES FRIENDLY TO PRIVATE, CORPORATE TRAFFIC; CORPORATE PILOT BUSINESS MIGHT TAKE OFF IN YEARS TO COME AT THE CAPE GIRARDEAU REGIONAL AIRPORT

As Cape Girardeau grows, more and more corporate air traffic will make its way in and out of the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, pilots say.

Not only will the number of airplanes around the airport increase but more corporate pilots might be based in area.

Randy Holdman is the chief pilot for Drury Southwest. He flies the company's new CitationJet over 25 hours a month and believes more jets will one day be housed at the airport. Drury Southwest's jet is the only corporate jet currently hangared at the airport.

Airport Manager Greg Chenoweth said the airport doesn't have the space to house additional larger, corporate aircraft. He said space is available for smaller aircraft but space to house private jets like a CitationJet doesn't exist.

"There is talk of building new hangars," he said. "We're waiting to hear a proposal. We've got room to grow, and we're sure willing to talk to someone to see what they'd like to do."

About 47 aircraft -- mostly single engine -- are based at the airport, Chenoweth said.

"We can handle more of that size," he said. "We would prefer to have more."

More aircraft might come with more pilots. And that's Ed Schaefer's job.

Schaefer, a pilot certified to train students in multi-engine aircraft, has been flying for 25 years. He now is teaching about a dozen students out of the Cape Girardeau airport ranging from teen-age college students to 50-year-old businessmen. He is one of several instructors who fly either free-lance or through the fixed-base operator, Air Evac.

The cost of becoming a corporate pilot is a small fortune, Schaefer said. The bare-minimum expense would be $30,000, depending on fees for tests, instructor rates, fuel costs and other expenses that could increase over the time the student was training.

The path leading to becoming a corporate pilot is long and complicated. Schaefer said a student trains in single-engine aircraft, then graduates to multi-engine aircraft. He said a student also must learn to fly using ground references then graduates to total instrument flying. Before becoming a corporate pilot, however, a commercial rating must be achieved, he said.

Many corporate pilots did what Holdman did: trained in the military and got paid for the service.

Holdman, a native of Bonne Terre, began flying in 1969 while attending the U.S. Air Force Academy. He spent 20 years flying fighter jets, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1991.

He moved to Cape Girardeau to become the airport manager. But a little over a year after taking that position, he was recruited by Drury Southwest to be the executive manager for construction and real estate development. Flying is a bonus, he said.

Depending on whether Cape Girardeau recruits additional industries, Holdman said more corporate aircraft would be based at the airport.

"It's possible that this could be a corporate headquarters for a lot of businesses," he said. "It's too hard to get in and out of St. Louis, and within a 500-mile radius of here, there's 50 percent of the population. We're almost in the middle of the U.S."

Chenoweth agreed. "This is the economic center for the region and we are able to service a need with this airport," he said.