Anti-Airport Strategies

ColoPilot

ColoPilot

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Feb 2, 2012
Messages
604
Location
Colorado
Display Name
Display name:
ColoPilot
I've been watching some local anti-airport groups, and they've taken some new strategies to try to shutdown or curtail airport activities recently. I thought I'd pass them along here so others can be on the watch for them.

On one local airport's noise roundtable, the chair of the group is pushing very hard to get landing fees instituted at the airport. He even stated this airport is one of the few without landing fees (not sure where he gets that info) and the airport is leaving "potential revenue" on the table by not charging landing fees. He is trying to sell fees as "good for the airport" and obscure the desire to use fees to reduce the traffic at the airport.

The second strategy, which I think is even more dangerous, was a ballot initiative for "local control of airport funding" at a municipal airport. It's written to require a supermajority (2/3rds of votes) to approve any transfer from city budget to the airport budget and, this is the sneaky part, require that same supermajority for the airport to accept funds from the FAA (i.e. airport improvement grant money). It's all sold as a desire "to have local control over the airport budget." This will effectively prevent the airport from accepting FAA money and the grant assurances that money requires that force the airport to remain an airport for 20 more years. The average non-pilot voter will only see the part about city tax money going to the airport and likely vote for it. Great way to starve an airport of funding and eventually let the grant assurances expire. Fortunately it didn't receive enough signatures to make the ballot -- at least this year.

Keep an eye out to protect our airports.
 
The way to defend against these is to call out the incorrect information and use that to leverage back to the dishonesty or ignorance of those pushing it. Factually, most airports do not have landing fees and that is easily provable. Additionally, selling tighter control over acceptance of improvement grants as "good" is just illogical.

That they don't know what they're talking about should tell everyone that this group really isn't informed.
 
Don't think that would happen were I live. Most towns only have 1 airport and they need it to survive.
 
AKBill said:
Don't think that would happen were I live. Most towns only have 1 airport and they need it to survive.
Click to expand...
You're lucky. Down here in the metro areas, there are a lot of people who buy a house next to an airport, decide they don't like the noise from the airport (which was there long before their house), and now are looking for ways to shutdown the airport. They find out the FAA grant money requires the airport to remain an airport (or pay back the grants) and then find out the airport can't control where the airplanes fly, so now they are looking for other methods to achieve their goals.
 
Years ago (decades ago) there was a Pacific Flyer article about a guy that was caught flying a 182 (iirc) low with high rpm over a neighborhood near an airport he wanted closed (he had recently purchased a house in that neighborhood). It wasn't the first time he bought a house close to an airport and worked to get it closed.
 
That sounds like fraud.
 
AKBill said:
Don't think that would happen were I live. Most towns only have 1 airport and they need it to survive.
Click to expand...

In fairness, the 49th state's example is a bit of a non-sequitur to the dynamic being lamented by the OP.

imo, what the OP brings up is another urban v exurban dynamic. There's 4 corners in a box, and all the monkeys wanna jam up in the same one corner, which is why we have the housing nonsense of current circumstances. At any rate, said corner is not going to be GA friendly, as many of our tOp 5o mEtRo airplane non-owner contributors frequently remind us of here. Something about having v eating cakes...

This is one of the unintended consequences of fomenting elitist pandering/rhetoric in this hobby. You get gentrified out of the pedestrian watering holes. Which wouldn't be a big deal except...we all turn back to pedestrians every time we land. Other than some of the more rabid DINK types, most people are not gonna give up the children/spouse/job-centered priorities to afford a hangar in the boonies, and/or drive an hour for a transportation-centric hobby as expensive as this one.

Bob Noel said:
Years ago (decades ago) there was a Pacific Flyer article about a guy that was caught flying a 182 (iirc) low with high rpm over a neighborhood near an airport he wanted closed (he had recently purchased a house in that neighborhood). It wasn't the first time he bought a house close to an airport and worked to get it closed.
Click to expand...

Just like wage down-pressure in professional aviation, pilots are their own worst enemies. Which is why I've always found the "solidarity" shtick of events like OSH rather specious. Not all demographics of aviation are interest-aligned. Pedestrian NIMBYs get the bulk of the flaming, but there's plenty of turbine snobs that don't care for recreational piston, and support the further gentrification/extinction of reliever airports away from their own bougie housing choices.

We're all innocent in Shawshank....
 
A lot of airports are governed by an airport authority. Passing laws that handcuffed the local gov. would have no effect on accepting FAA grants.
 
Clip4 said:
A lot of airports are governed by an airport authority. Passing laws that handcuffed the local gov. would have no effect on accepting FAA grants.
Click to expand...
In this case the airport is owned by the city and the proposed initiative was an amendment to the city charter so it would have effected the airport. Luckily they didn't get enough signatures to get on the November ballot, but I'm sure they'll try again.
 
Santa Clara County does not like airports. Their prime strategy to close county controllled local airports is neglect. They spend $0 on maintenance and just let everything decay. This is a wealthy county and they have $100M’s cash in the bank.

To accelerate the process of decay they created rules such as no weed killer allowed at the airport, and have volunteer groups who are allowed to only remove weeds by mechanical means. As the weeds grow and destroy the hard surfaces, people come along with pics, shovels, and hoes dig out the weeds exacerbating the cracks where more weeds flourish and grow and a faster pace.

The coupling of this strategy of neglect with a lead hazard study and a social justice argument to create affordable housing on 180 acres for Reid Hillview Airport KRHV, is the counties latest attempt.

One more strategy item, they have various tools to make businesses on the airport untenable or unprofitable pushing tenants out. mini the hangers were built in the 1950s or 60s and are falling apart. They refused to sign leases longer than 24 months which is not enough Time to get any ROI out of new construction. This also accelerates the neglect strategy.
 
Last edited:
Just invite Jeff Bezos to move in. You'll get a huge runway expansion, lots of new large buildings around the airport, and talk of ground leases expiring and being let out to bigger customers.

You won't have to worry about the airport getting shut down. But, get ready for some increases in your operating costs.
 
JVerb said:
Can I use that photo...? It's a great picture of my company's work...
Click to expand...

It's not my photo, I just googled Amazon Lakeland and grabbed the first photo that popped up. Amazon has certainly been a huge engine of growth and economic activity in Lakeland.
 
ColoPilot said:
The second strategy, which I think is even more dangerous, was a ballot initiative for "local control of airport funding" at a municipal airport. It's written to require a supermajority (2/3rds of votes) to approve any transfer from city budget to the airport budget and, this is the sneaky part, require that same supermajority for the airport to accept funds from the FAA (i.e. airport improvement grant money).
Click to expand...

If I'm reading this correctly, they are wanting to hold a public election for every FAA grant? They realize those grants get doled out annually, and there is a timetable for design, bid, application, acceptance, and use of FAA grants. Trying to schedule a public election in the middle of that cycle would be ludicrous. This is why you have elected (or appointed) officials in charge of the airport making those decisions, so you don't have to bring each one to a public vote.
 
Here are two things one can do to support your local GA airport:
  1. Volunteer to serve on your local airport commission or airport authority. Having informed pilots on the local governing body does wonders for making informed decisions, and builds allies within the local community.
  2. Evaluate and disseminate the economic impact of your local airport. We are on our second such effort at our local airport. Our planning consultlants and the state helped with the first one, and for the most recent one we co-opted students at the local university for an undergraduate research project in economics, facilitated by a faculty member and airport commission member. It was pretty easy to show that airport traffic was really good for the local economy.
A little more than a decade ago our mayor established our municipal airport/airpark commission to advise the Board of Trustees. One of the requirements of that commission is that there be representation from active pilots. That has worked out well. We now have three active pilots on the commission out of five members. Two piston and one turbine flyer.
 
midwestpa24 said:
If I'm reading this correctly, they are wanting to hold a public election for every FAA grant? They realize those grants get doled out annually, and there is a timetable for design, bid, application, acceptance, and use of FAA grants. Trying to schedule a public election in the middle of that cycle would be ludicrous. This is why you have elected (or appointed) officials in charge of the airport making those decisions, so you don't have to bring each one to a public vote.
Click to expand...

You read it correctly, but remember the group behind this doesn't want the airport to accept any FAA grants (and the accompanying grant assurances). Their goal is to shutdown the airport, and they are getting more sophisticated in their tactics -- playing the long game.
 
midwestpa24 said:
If I'm reading this correctly, they are wanting to hold a public election for every FAA grant? They realize those grants get doled out annually, and there is a timetable for design, bid, application, acceptance, and use of FAA grants. Trying to schedule a public election in the middle of that cycle would be ludicrous. This is why you have elected (or appointed) officials in charge of the airport making those decisions, so you don't have to bring each one to a public vote.
Click to expand...

That's the point. By baking in a delay function, they can safely assure that the grant money is never accepted and therefore they don't have to comply with keeping the airport open.
 
Bob Noel said:
Years ago (decades ago) there was a Pacific Flyer article about a guy that was caught flying a 182 (iirc) low with high rpm over a neighborhood near an airport he wanted closed (he had recently purchased a house in that neighborhood). It wasn't the first time he bought a house close to an airport and worked to get it closed.
Click to expand...
The irony
 
NordicDave said:
Santa Clara County does not like airports. Their prime strategy to close county controllled local airports is neglect. They spend $0 on maintenance and just let everything decay. This is a wealthy county and they have $100M’s cash in the bank.

To accelerate the process of decay they created rules such as no weed killer allowed at the airport, and have volunteer groups who are allowed to only remove weeds by mechanical means. As the weeds grow and destroy the hard surfaces, people come along with pics, shovels, and hoes dig out the weeds exacerbating the cracks where more weeds flourish and grow and a faster pace.

The coupling of this strategy of neglect with a lead hazard study and a social justice argument to create affordable housing on 180 acres for Reid Hillview Airport KRHV, is the counties latest attempt.

One more strategy item, they have various tools to make businesses on the airport untenable or unprofitable pushing tenants out. mini the hangers were built in the 1950s or 60s and are falling apart. They refused to sign leases longer than 24 months which is not enough Time to get any ROI out of new construction. This also accelerates the neglect strategy.
Click to expand...

The NIMBYs have been trying to shut down RHV much longer than I've been a pilot. I remember that crap when I lived in San Jose, and I escaped from that overpopulated zoo over 26 years ago.
 
Ghery said:
The NIMBYs have been trying to shut down RHV much longer than I've been a pilot. I remember that crap when I lived in San Jose, and I escaped from that overpopulated zoo over 26 years ago.
Click to expand...

One of the sad things about RHV is that once that land is handed over to a developer, it will never come back to the county as we all know. Given the state of our public education system, i would love to see the county create a STEM center on the airport. A common complaint of underserved communities is that the resources that do exist aren't easily accessible. Here is an opportunity to address that concern. Take a look at the Bob Hoover Academy in Monterey. Pilots love talking about pilot stuff (well duh) so take advantage of that rather than whine about it. So frustrating.

I have reached out to my county supervisor but, no response. Shocking. They used to have airport days or whatever they called it with demonstrations, bands, etc. The community came out in full force for that. As a pilot, I had no issue with the airport being shut down for that.
 
We need to go on the offensive: starting with declaration of many of these airports as historic sites, due to their age and their important place in history.
Somehow get them a protected status.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
We need to go on the offensive: starting with declaration of many of these airports as historic sites, due to their age and their important place in history.
Somehow get them a protected status.
Click to expand...

Declaring them historic sites will tie an airport up in environmental analysis purgatory forever.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
We need to go on the offensive: starting with declaration of many of these airports as historic sites, due to their age and their important place in history.
Somehow get them a protected status.
Click to expand...

I agree and we need to shame the moron pilots who think it's ok to circle over these areas to teach the complainers a lesson. That's a really dumb thing to do.
 
NoBShere said:
I have reached out to my county supervisor but, no response. Shocking. They used to have airport days or whatever they called it with demonstrations, bands, etc. The community came out in full force for that. As a pilot, I had no issue with the airport being shut down for that.
Click to expand...

In today's world, you're not really welcome at most urban airports unless you're flying something that burns kerosene. They'd just as soon tell the 100LL crowd to Foxtrot Oscar. And they'd rather eat a bug than invite the unwashed masses of general public folks onto airport grounds. The fences with barbed wire on top don't help the airport's image. They are knee jerk over-reactions to 911 and are useless as heck. Unless you're a high roller and don't want to rub elbows with the unwashed.

We do need to get "airport days" back with free airplane walk-throughs, ice cream, maybe a brief airshow, etc. A little humanity and outreach go a long way.
 
There are people that want to turn the US into a Euro-style culture. That includes aviation and the regulation of aviation. Aviation is still loved in more rural areas, but n the bigger cities it's considered a noisy, bothersome waste of resources.
 
kyleb said:
In today's world, you're not really welcome at most urban airports unless you're flying something that burns kerosene. They'd just as soon tell the 100LL crowd to Foxtrot Oscar. And they'd rather eat a bug than invite the unwashed masses of general public folks onto airport grounds. The fences with barbed wire on top don't help the airport's image. They are knee jerk over-reactions to 911 and are useless as heck. Unless you're a high roller and don't want to rub elbows with the unwashed.

We do need to get "airport days" back with free airplane walk-throughs, ice cream, maybe a brief airshow, etc. A little humanity and outreach go a long way.
Click to expand...

It takes some determination. Pre-Covid at our local regional (U42) a variety of organizations hosted an “open hangar” event. A lot of people showed up to browse around, including one of our club planes. It’s unfortunate that a YE event wasn’t included. That would have maximized the outreach.

Also unfortunate that myself and another club member were flying the plane afterwards. During prefly we quickly discovered a crew Comm issue. Turns out one of the people that were pushing buttons in the plane had somehow half-pushed the mic/headset toggle button. That took a hot minute or ten to figure out.
 
woodchucker said:
Also unfortunate that myself and another club member were flying the plane afterwards. During prefly we quickly discovered a crew Comm issue. Turns out one of the people that were pushing buttons in the plane had somehow half-pushed the mic/headset toggle button. That took a hot minute or ten to figure out.
Click to expand...

When you've done this, do you take any measures to prevent the plane from being started/screwed with/accidentally damaged? Pulling the spark plugs seems like a basic step, but I'd even be nervous unless I had a pilot sitting in the back seat the whole time watching whoever came through.
 
woodchucker said:
It takes some determination. Pre-Covid at our local regional (U42) a variety of organizations hosted an “open hangar” event. A lot of people showed up to browse around, including one of our club planes. It’s unfortunate that a YE event wasn’t included. That would have maximized the outreach.

Also unfortunate that myself and another club member were flying the plane afterwards. During prefly we quickly discovered a crew Comm issue. Turns out one of the people that were pushing buttons in the plane had somehow half-pushed the mic/headset toggle button. That took a hot minute or ten to figure out.
Click to expand...
What kind of jackass gets into a strange aircraft and starts pushing random buttons? What a moronic, childish, inconsiderate thing to do!
 
Salty said:
What kind of jackass gets into a strange aircraft and starts pushing random buttons? What a moronic, childish, inconsiderate thing to do!
Click to expand...

A kid? A non-pilot?
 
Salty said:
What kind of jackass gets into a strange aircraft and starts pushing random buttons? What a moronic, childish, inconsiderate thing to do!
Click to expand...

They were letting the public get in the airplanes, under pilot supervision. Hey, at least there aren’t any ejection handles to worry about!
 
penaltyvectors said:
When you've done this, do you take any measures to prevent the plane from being started/screwed with/accidentally damaged? Pulling the spark plugs seems like a basic step, but I'd even be nervous unless I had a pilot sitting in the back seat the whole time watching whoever came through.
Click to expand...

They were under pilot supervision.
 
Salty said:
What kind of jackass gets into a strange aircraft and starts pushing random buttons? What a moronic, childish, inconsiderate thing to do!
Click to expand...

I was at an event where they were letting kids get into aircraft, this kid, about 5 years old, climbs into a glider with the dad and a volunteer there. When the kid gets in he grabs the stick and starts jamming it from stop to stop as hard as he could, about 5 times before the volunteer can grab it and stop him. The dad just kind of apologized, pulled the kid, brought him to another airplane, where the kid got in and did it again.....
 
I get kids, I thought he said it was adults.
 
The pic below shows me putting some butts in the plane so I've got some experience with this.
DSC_0121.JPG
That was my first event where I did that and I definitely learned some things. When I was a teenager I routinely rode the bus out to the local airport (now long gone) with my camera. I agree with the statement that post 9/11 the tall fences and razor wire send the message that the general public is not welcome, so I like to be the guy who makes airplanes approachable.

The problems are numerous. The moment you put some eager youngster (or adult) in the plane a line will form, and it could be two hours before you get a break. In the mix will be perfectly well behaved kids who are genuinely interested in aviation, some kids who sit blankly because mom put them up there and you get some feral kids who compulsively slam the stick around and then lunge for switches and knobs. I pull those kids right out and hand them back to their parents with no apologies (and they already understand why). The kids who are curious and asking questions can sit as long as they want.

I watched each kid closely but expected adults to keep their hands to themselves. Well the adults are the worst offenders. I've found my master switch on, and I found the handles which eject canopy side panels opened more than once. On the flip side I saw a teenage girl chew her dad out when he started touching my polished prop.

It's hard to find the balance. You want to be a positive influence and draw people to aviation, but I don't want to risk damage to the aircraft or crash a plane over it. It adds a whole bunch of things to your preflight which normally don't require attention.

I haven't experienced it but I have heard tales from others of kids hanging from pitot tubes and parents using the horizontal stab as a baby changing table.

When we sold the BT and got a T-6 I learned that someone could move the gear lever to the up position and while the gear isn't powered, there are no locks to keep the plane from laying on its belly either - and no lock pins for use on the ground. As a result I all but stopped inviting people up on the wing.
 
A couple of years so I was at a fly-in, sitting in the shade under the wing, when a guy (adult) started turning my propeller back and forth. I'm afraid I reacted a bit forcefully, "STOP THAT! Don't you know it could start? It could take your head off!", etc., etc. He actually started arguing with me, "there's no way it could start," as he kept moving it. I tried to explain that that's exactly how I do start the engine, but it just didn't sink in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top