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36 airportbusiness February/March 2016 FUELING/ LINEOPS/ SAFETY By Doug Wilson Best Practices in FBO Management FAR Part 77: Imaginary Surfaces Under Part 77, several imaginary sur- face areas of an airport are defined and their dimensions are a function of the type of airport itself and the approaches available to that air- port, among other factors. The first surface— and perhaps most obvious—is referred to as the primary surface. At ground level and ema- nating from the centerline of the runway, the primary surface is the area which must be object free—excepting those required for the safe movement of aircraft, such as lighting, taxiway signage and navaids. While other imaginary surfaces, such as the approach surface on runway ends are more common- ly known to pilots, it is another imaginary surface—the "transitional surface" that most affects FBOs. Transitional surfaces establish a 7:1 slope of a protected area outwards from either side of the runway, or primary surface. A t almost every airport across the country, an FBO's leasehold is com- prised of a mixture of buildable and non-buildable areas, dependent on a number of factors. One factor defining non-buildable areas may be found in an airport's minimum standards, where a leasehold improvement formula is some - times located. For example, for each square foot of improvements on a leasehold—such as hangars or an FBO building—a certain corresponding percentage of non-buildable square footage is in turn dedicated to aircraft parking or transition areas, known more simply as "ramp" space. More often than not however, the real factor which affects FBOs and dictates those non-buildable areas of a leasehold is FAR Part 77, Imaginary Surfaces.