Airport Closures

Great Debates
1

I like airplane noise. Always have. My apartment is under the downwind leg of the Santa Monica Airport (SMO) traffic pattern. And yes, I’m a pilot. Here’s my beef:

(I should point out that the airports I’m talking about are General Aviation – “GA” – airports; not LAX, Dulles, Denver, etc.) Airports are built in places that are away from developed areas. This is probably financial, as land in the boonies is cheaper than land downtown. But what happens? Housing moves closer and closer to the airport property until the airport is an island in a sea of homes and strip malls.

Then what happens? The people who moved into the houses next to the airport complain about the noise and try to close it down as a nuisance.

These people knew, or should have known, that there was an airport nearby. If they didn’t want to hear airplanes, shouldn’t they have made their homes somewhere else? They often claim that the houses near the airport were cheaper than similar houses they could get farther away. If that is true (and I’m not convinced it is), shouldn’t they realize that the property was less expensive because it was next to an airport? Isn’t it the responsibility of the home-buyer to know all of the available information about the neighbourhood he is moving into?

A couple of anecdotes:

  1. SMO was originally called Clover Field and was built in about 1922. It was well away from the city in a large field of clover. Now it is surrounded by people who want to close it down, even though it provides business opportunities and an alternative to large jets. Perfect example of the above.

  2. People in the San Francisco area tried for years to close a GA airport that they had (intentionally!) built their homes around. After the earthquake up there, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP, or USAF Auxilliary), relief organizations and individuals used that airport to ferry in water, food, supplies, and the dog (search) teams that got so much publicity. They decided a little airplane noise was dwarfed by the benefits of having an airpot nearby.

Most of the “airplane noise” that I hear around here are the police helicopters that orbit for a couple hours at a time looking for criminals.

Any thoughts?

2

Most privately-owned GA airports are living pretty hand to mouth. Here in St. Louis we had a friendly little airstrip where several generations of pilots learned to fly. Like you said, it was slowly surrounded by strip malls and subdivisions. Finally, the family that owned it sold out and it was swallowed by development.

A lot of those hemmed-in little airports probably should close – the takeoff/landing patterns aren’t safe anymore, and a 2,500’ grass runway doesn’t leave a lot of margin for error if there’s a McDonald’s 100 feet from the end of the runway. They’re a nostalgic holdover from a simpler time.

3

Johnny L.A. wrote:

Not QUITE a perfect example of the above.

You see, I too grew up in the Los Angeles area. In fact, the house my parents were in just before I moved into my own place was walking distance from SMO. And it HAS gotten louder over the years.

Fifteen years ago, there was a big sign just outside the landing threshold, easily legible from low altitude, which read, “NO JETS”. This sign now reads, “Please FLY QUIETLY.” Business jets used to be forbidden to land and take off from SMO; now they are allowed there. And business jets are some of the noisiest little critters in the air, particularly the older ones.

So at least in the case of Santa Monica airport, the more recent noise complaints are not SOLELY because of encroaching houses.

The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.

4

I disagree a little with small airports being a nostalgic holdover from a simpler time. Yes, grass strips are nostalgic; and yes, a lot of people use them because they like the ol’ “stick-and-rudder” flying. But I think they’re important if for no other reason that new ones are exceedingly rare. Flying can be very expensive and small airports help keep costs down by providing a cheap place to tie down and by (usually) being situated in a place where expensive electronics are not required. There are a lot of old airplanes out there, and it’s hard to justify adding electrical systems and mode-C transponders to many of the “classics”. Also, experimental-class aircraft are technically prohibited from flying over congested areas (although you can get a waiver). Small airports allow a place for the homebuilder to build his machine without haveing to pay exhorbitant fees for a hangar.

But most airports that people want to close down have paved runways and are in cities. I’ve only been in L.A. a dozen years, so I don’t know about the jet traffic at SMO; but I do know that I have not been bothered at all by them. I’ve seen many business jets land there, but I seldom hear them. There is a golf course off the end of the runway and pilots are required to “dog-leg” over it and reduce power on climb-out to reduce noise. Hmmmm. Reduce power and risk an engine failure and having a plane land on top of you; or let the plane climb away quickly?

The point is that people who don’t like airports shouldn’t live near them. Cities should not approve structures “100 feet from the end of the runway”.

I remember when I was a kid, going to watch airplanes take off and land from Montgomery Field in San Diego. It was magic. I think pilots should share the magic with people who live near the fields. Got an extra seat? :slight_smile:

5

To begin with, the airspace survey (if a public USE airport) will not allow a McPukes to be built 100’ off the end of the runway. My quaint little 2850’ runway offered safety and options UNTIL encroached by development that had not been here for the 35 years that the airport had been in operation. I submit that it is the development that made the area unsafe and not the airport or its users.
And many of these ‘nostalgic holdovers’ are used by commuters, busineses and other legitimate aviators. Hardly the dangerous barnstorming roosts from the past.

Johnny - I learned to fly out of HHR and perhaps passed you in the corridor on occasion. I love the noise also, so much that I live on a strip now :slight_smile:

6

Here in Edmonton, we have an industrial airport right in the center of the city, which used to be a major transportation hub and was VERY busy. There are buildings surrounding it on all sides, including 20-story high-rises less than a mile away.

In 50 years of operation, there was exactly one crash of an aircraft into a building, with no fatalities on the ground. During that same time, there were no doubt hundreds or thousands of automobile accidents on the roads around the airport. Yet, the airport succumbed to public pressure to move many of the flights way off to the International airport, partially for ‘safety’ reasons. Now the airport is in danger of being closed.

General Aviation is getting more and more expensive. Overbearing regulations have pushed the cost of owning an airplane past the means of most people, and new airplanes are prohibitively expensive. And the fleet of used airplanes is aging and getting more expensive to maintain. We’re going to see a massive decrease in the population of pilots, and that’s really sad.

When I was a kid I used to bicycle out to the airport and help people with their airplanes, or just sit in the grass and watch them fly. It was very romantic for a young boy. It was one of the things that led me to get an education and try to do well in life. Young kids today typically don’t have the ability to do this anymore, because of increased security, airport closures, liability concerns, etc.

Anyone who’s reading this who is a pilot - take any opportunity you can get to take a kid flying. If you’re going out to fly some circuits in a 150, ask the neighbor’s kid if he’d like a flight. Join the EAA’s ‘Young Eagles’ program. Talk to a scout troop. Help keep kids interested. It’s in everyone’s benefit.

7

Oblio,

When I fly near LAX (oh, I fly a helicopter) I drop down to about 100 feet and fly below the bluffs at the end of the runway. Very scenic. Do you know what that outflow of water in the ocean is? Outflow from the power plant? Something else?

dhanson,

You’re right about flying getting more expensive. In 1976 my father bought a 1970 Cessna 172. He sold it in the mid-80s for $19,000. I’ve been thinking of trying to find N84573 (which I learned to fly in, BTW) to see if it’s for sale. But today it would cost about $39,000. And why did he have to sell his immaculate 1968 C-182? Aiyiyi!

I’d like to have a Schweizer 300, but helis are WAY out of the budget. sigh

I think I read that a new C-172 costs about $150,000. It seems to me that with the liability relief passed by Congress a couple of years ago that they wouldn’t be so much. 150 kilobucks for a 40-year-old design???

IMO, Cessna, Piper, et al, should build more planes and charge about $100,000 for them. There would be more buyers, which would drive down the cost of older airplanes, which would allow more people to become pilots, which would increase demand, which would allow Cessna, Piper, et al, to build more aircraft at a reasonable price, which would attract more buyers…

And with more people flying, maybe our airports will be safe.

8

They simply can’t build them for that much. Other companies have tried to sell ‘affordable’ aircraft, and all have either gone out of business or raised their prices. Piper drove itself into bankruptcy by trying to sell their light singles for prices near $100,000. Now a new Warrior is back up in the 150K range.

Everything that goes into an airplane is expensive. A new Continental or Lycoming engine is $20,000. A new Nav/Com radio is $2,000. Just the instruments in a basic VFR panel are worth maybe $5000.

Even the kit manufacturers like Cirrus and Lancair had to bring the price of their products up into the near-$200K range once they started selling ready-built models.

And yet, a $15,000 car has far more parts, much more complexity, more raw materials, and probably even more electronics.

9

Johnny - I hope that wasn’t the Hyperion plant effluent you saw. YECHHHH.

dhanson said:

Having just majored my engine, I will jump all over anyone who disputes this fact. Don’t think anyone will though.

I think a lot of the price of an aircraft is tied up in product liability. I just gave $100 for a vacuum pump drive coupling (which should cost about $5) because if it dies in IMC and I’m not proficient at partial panel… , who gets sued ? Me, the one at fault for not keeping my skills honed for that occasion, or the mega-buck corporation that makes the part?

Additionally, I would think that production economies of scale and robotic assembly are not available or practical in light aircraft manufacturing. There is a lot of expensive labor involved in buildng a spam can 172/182.

I just perused the latest Trade-A-Plane and while used aircraft are not cheap, a nice basic plane (172 class) can be had for the cost of an SUV. Yes, I know it is 50 year old technology, slow, uncomfortable etc. but I would rather fly it than drive a SUV. It is just a matter of priorities.

Oblio

10

Oblio,
You won’t get an arguement from ME that maint. is expensive! L

You’re right that spam-cans can’t use the robotic techniques that have streamlined car production. And I agree that product liability is a big factor in the cost of an aircraft. (I think that’s why Piper went bankrupt; building $100,000 planes before the liability reform bill was passed.) But I think that they can be less expensive to buy.

I don’t know what the average salary was back in 1976 was, but $10,000 sounds reasonable. If that’s the case, my dad’s then-six-year-old C-172 cost about a year’s salary. I don’t think I can get a six-year-old Piper or the a 16-year-old Cessna for a year’s salary now. What I make in a year will buy me a 30-year-old C-172. Back in the 70s aircraft manufacturers were making, what?, 15,000 planes a year at the peak? Today a couple thousand a year is considered good. More planes means lower prices, and I think the best way of making more planes is to make them less expensive.

sigh Why couldn’t I have been born rich instead of good-looking? L

11

I guess we just need more people to call

1-800-I-CAN-FLY.

“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

12

I think the cost of product liability insurance is overrated. A new 172 is still something like 175,000, after liability reform.

It’s a complex web of things that drives up the cost of light airplanes - poor economies of scale, expensive regulations, product liability, etc.

Owning an airplane doesn’t have to be expensive. I bought a Grumman AA1 in 1992 for $11,000. Flew it for six years, and sold it for the same amount of money. My cost to fly was basically gas, oil, tiedowns, and maintenance. I was lucky in that I never had a serious mechanical problem - my most expensive annual was about $650, the cheapest $350 (owner assisted). Tiedown was another $400/yr, insurance about $300. Total annual expenditure: $1400. Hell, teenagers pay more than that now just for insurance on their cars.

Variable costs were about $25/hr for gas, oil, etc. No TBO reserve - the engine had 1400 hours left on it, and I was flying about 100 hours a year. I figured that if I sold it after 10 years with 400 TBO it would still be worth what I paid for it, and I was right.

But like I said, I got lucky. If an annual had found a serious engine problem, it could have been a $15,000 bill pretty quickly. Or I could have been hit with one of those lovely cover-your-ass AD’s and eaten up a few thousand.

But this is an age when the most popular vehicle is a luxury SUV. People will drop $30,000 on a new one, lose $3000/yr in depreciation, $2000 in financing charges, spend $1200 on insurance, and then say that airplane owners must be rich. Hell, I can buy a used 172 for $30,000 that will go up in value every year. If I buy a small used car instead of the SUV, the $3000/yr in depreciation pays for a LOT of maintenance and gas.

Incidentally, if you haven’t flown a Grumman AA1, you should give it a try. Snappy handling, bubble canopy - great fun.

13

My first logged hours were in a Grumman AA-5 when I was about 15. Nice little plane. I shot a landing on a windy day in Dagget (with an instructor of course, but I was on the controls) and an instructor on the ground told my dad (who was FAA and stationed there) said, “He made that landing better than… as well as I could!” LOL I lost my log book when I moved from San Diego to Lancaster, but it only had 5 hours in it so it was not biggie.

I’d forgotten about the option of buying a plane with no intention of overhauling it. That certainly would lower the costs of ownership.

There’s another reason for keeping small airports. Having a reasonably-priced place to tie it down!

14

Non-pilot, so I don’t have a whole lot to add, but two brief observations:

  1. The “people move around pre-existing airport and then get upset about it being there” is by no means limited to airports. I’ve seen it with businesses, farms, a lot of phenomena. It’s based on people (term used loosely) believing that the world revolves around their wishes.

  2. I don’t know whether this is limited to military airports or not, but there is a thing called the AICUZ (Air Installation Compatible Use Zone) that by Federal regulation limits what can be built where within a certain distance of an airport, and particularly the ends of the runways. The two airfields that I had to deal with it in reference to were Air Force and Army, so I don’t have a clue whether it applies to “civilian” airports. (Insofar as I know it is the only direct zoning-type Federal regulation of land use, other than wetlands and coastal zone protection.)

15

Poly,

There is indeed a zoning that can apply to public use airports. I have a copy of the airspace survey/zoning report that applies to our airport and I am friends with a pilot that performs these surveys as part of his business. As you said, the restrictions usually are at the ends of the runways. In our case, development is restricted vertically to below a 1:20 slope off each runway along a extended centerline. The horizontal extent varies proportional to the distance from the end of the runway.

Just recently, the owner of the plot of land off the end of one of our runways appealed to the county to have our strip closed or at least remove the restrictions to development. The county attorney did his homework and found that they could not do so as it was a public use airport and the developer would have to abide by the restrictions.
Sometimes the man from the FAA IS there to help, though I doubt the developer would agree with me.

Unfortunately, I think that private use airports do not have this protection and are the ones that are succumbing to development pressures. Well, that and the owner selling the airport and moving to Idaho. I have heard that a private airport can receive some measure of protection by obtaining a GPS Instrument approach but I am not sure to what extent that protection extends.

Note that the previous references to Public/Private applies to the use of the facility and not the ownership.

Oblio