On Wed, 09 Nov 2005 14:28:27 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

This sounds like it's going to be an ongoing deal for some time Roger.
I hope it all goes well for your side in the end.

I really don't think so. I think the guy is just unhappy about the
sudden increase in early morning flights right out over his home. He
didn't mind when it was over someone else's house. :-))

Reading this brought back some memories and Bea and I sat down last night
and got out some old records and photos.
Believe it or not, almost every small field where I either flew from or
instructed out of is now gone; some are housing developments; some are
shopping centers or malls. One is an industrial park.
It's absolutely amazing!
The entire face of aviation has changed.
The funny thing is that I've always wondered how Golf Courses have escaped
the developers ax that has been used on the small airports.
I figured it out once over lunch with a couple of "big money" guys at our
local country club. We figured that off the first tee with a good drive, the
ball would over fly about 10 million dollars of prime development real
estate.

It depends on WHO plays golf on the course.
Here the country club is where the money plays and ain't no one gonna
touch that. The city golf course is heavily used and just happens to
be on a flood plain. They built an artificial hill for the pro shack.
I don't know how many times I've been driving into town and could only
see the top of the roof on the old shack peeking out of the water.
:-)) Ain't no one in their right mind going to try to develop that
land for any thing other than what it is.

(Actually for my drive, about 5 million dollars would about do it I think
:-)))))
You have to wonder about all that prime land with the airports and the golf
courses as well, just sitting there waiting for the right combination of
developer/politician/ and "the inevitable DEAL, this combo can produce!

You have to have the right money using the golf course and the
airport. If it's someone who puts millions of dollars into the city,
or heads up one or more foundations that do, the city fathers are not
going to do anything to tie a knot in the money hose.

At one time we had a family that flew back and fourth to their homes
in the SW a couple times a month. That guy had a couple hangars full
of airplanes, but he's long gone.

I hope your airport escapes and survives.

I think it will this time and maybe for another decade or two. The
State wants the airport for a reliever too. So if the city tried to
close it the state just *might* claim eminent domain, give them what
ever they thought it was worth and use it as they saw fit. I'm fairly
certain even the complainers don't want that. :-))

Then we might end up with longer runways and a couple of roads with
some kinks in them to give the right of way to the airplanes.

I don't think that would happen, but nothing is out of the realm of
possibilities. Particularly when you have a couple of politicians
using said airport.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
Dudley

"Roger" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:38:59 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

Hi Roger;

This is a cycle that has occurred and often repeats itself at many small
airports. Unless it's dealt with aggressively up front, it can become an
airport killer. I've seen this happen at several airports during my career
and the way it happened in all cases was consistent.

Yup, We've been through it a couple of times.

The airport exists.

The developers come and build without a winning challenge from the
airport,
usually because the airport can't afford the challenge.

If they sell any noise complaints are recorded. I think that's what
makes them so upset and why this guy has his shorts in a bunch. He's
****ed about the noise, but doesn't want a complaint on his deed and
said as much in his letter to the editor..

To read the article you need to sign up, but they just want a valid
e-mail address as I recall. I've never been spamed from them and
they've never shared the address, but you can use a "throw away"
address as long as it's valid when you sign up.

http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news....dept_id=472539
takes you to the editorial page. The topic is "City needs to look at
Barstow Again".
The news paper www.ourmidland.com . Select "editorial page" near the
bottom (it's in fine print) and then look up the topic, or do a search
on the above topic. The page may only be up for another day or two
so if it's not there you just do the search.

Upscale houses are built and usually sold to professional and business
people involved directly in the local area.

The complaints start rolling in to the local politicians.

The math is simple. Just count the votes the people complaining control vs
the vote controlled by the local airport.

In this case the city just put $750,000 into a new terminal, we have
"as I recall" about a half million in recent federal grants, and just
scheduled $350,000 for resurfacing 18/36. I think the total for the
next year or so is around 1.5 million and we may just get 4000 plus
out of 06/24, but it won't be much more than that or they'd have to
move a main road and clear out about 6 or 8 large businesses.

A good portion of the airport land was purchased with the aid of
federal grants while most of the rest was "given" to the city to use
as an airport, but with some pretty strong deed restrictions. It gets
used as an airport, cemetery, or goes back to the foundations. It
might get turned into a very expensive park as it'd cost the city
millions to close and the developers wouldn't have a shot at most of
it anyway.

The city "so far" sees the airport as a high profile gateway to a
"progressive" city and an attraction to bring in more businesses.
We have two very large chemical companies which of course base their
aircraft at MBS as they are way too big for 3BS, but the larger of the
two has been downsizing its work force substantially, or moving some
production to other US sites. The hourly workforce alone was over
7500 back in the 50's and 60's. Now it's about a quarter that (or
less), so the city is working hard to bring in more businesses and of
the type that will allow for "upscale" employees.

We built a new "three sheet" ice arena that opened this past summer.
Last weekend it hosted the US National Junior, short track speed
skating championships. We also host world class tennis meets.
This is the direction the city planners want to go and the light in
which they want their city to be seen.

The city is fighting the erosion of jobs and trying to turn downtown
into ... well, something. They earned a "Cool City" or some such
award recently. That allows them to get more grants and state money
for beautification projects.


Add to this the fact that in many cases the land the airport sits on is a
prime target for more developers, and you have the perfect equation for an
airport's demise!!

I may be wrong, but I don't think the developers would get a shot at
most of it and the foundations are unlikely to sell it.

OTOH we are still dealing with the mentality of those who didn't want
the runways lengthened because of the noise and we'd probably get some
jets in. We already get some small jets and the current generation is
quieter than most of our high performance prop planes. Now when I
take off on 18 I go out over one noise sensitive area at 200 to 500
feet instead of pattern altitude due to a 3000 foot runway instead of
4000. If it's a hot day I can count the boards in their picnic
tables. :-)) They hated me when the Deb still had the 2-blade prop
as the tips were supersonic at take off RPM and I sure wasn't going to
back off at 200 feet.

In this guy's case, he was quite happy with the airport until some
flights started going over his place early in the morning. He "thinks"
they are business flights so he want's us to keep the airport for the
local pilots and have the business flights go into MBS. Of course
coming into 3BS saves them a good two hours or more plus car rental.
To those people the price of two hours is probably more than my yearly
pension *plus* what I make off the stock market.

This is a case of what some people would call big money, but if so
it's big money fighting some *really* big money.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Dudley



"Roger" wrote in message
...
Well, here we go again although so far there is just the one nut.

A few years back there was an organized effort to close Midland
Barstow (3BS). Of course the argument was noise even though we were
here first. As the noise issue was not working they tried to fire up
the residents by complaining about the airport subsidy for a bunch of
hobbyists, or amateur pilots. Turned out that a study showed the
airport brings in about $10 million dollars into the area each year.
They weren't satisfied with that so they paid to have their own study
done. It did say the first study was wrong. I came up with
considerably *more* than ten million. :-)) When they found out how
many millions of dollars it'd cost to close the airport and dispose of
the land the effort died.

However, trying to be good neighbors the departure was changed to
straight out with the preferred runway being 06/24 as there was
nothing off the end of 24 outbound except a few houses and a lot of
trees. Departing 06 takes you out over the north end of a mall and a
few businesses.

Well, the inevitable happened and people built some new subdivisions
off the departure end of 24. It's now almost solid homes for about a
mile and a half and they are the big expensive ones. There is a bit
more traffic in the mornings lately so they are now complaining about
the changes in the traffic and the noise.

Oh yah! This group is complaining there are too many business
flights and we should keep the airport for the local pilots to use.

There is also the argument against lengthening the runways, but try
and convince them that if a plane starts its take off roll a 1000 feet
farther away it'll be much higher and quieter when it goes over their
home off the end of the runway. They're worried about jets, but most
of today's smaller jets are far quieter than most of our high
performance singles and twins.

One other thing, now that we have GPS they are in line with the
straight in approach for 06, so inbound will only be about 500 feet
above them. I don't think they have figured that one out yet.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Roger