Airport vs Community.

I used to work at a community airport in Florida. This airport had been in the same spot since World War II. When the runways were built, there was nothing around the place but trees and a couple alligators. After the war the airport was turned over to the municipality to do with as they wish. The city kept it as their own and it became the biggest general aviation facility in town. As urban sprawl swept through during the post war era, the community grew around and enveloped the property on all sides. The airport continued to train pilots and funnel money into the community through taxes. It provided jobs to the locals and a direct port for corporate and tourist alike to infuse capitol into the local economy. The community was growing but the airport never had. It's two runways were in the same configuration they had been since it was a staging area for bombers to fly to Europe in the forties. Sure it had undergone modernization but it was essentially the same size it was during the war.

In the late nineties, the local managers and city planners proposed to lengthen one of the runways to accommodate the more modern corporate jets people are flying these days and also to strengthen the runway in the process in order to use the airport as an emergency landing spot for the jets at the international airport nearby. The local community got wind of this proposal and immediately went into an uproar. Petitions and complaints were filed by the truckload complaining about the noise that the airport already generated. They assumed that the lengthening of the runway would bring in commuter airlines and louder jets that would fly over their houses. The runway proposal was shot down.

On the surface, the communities arguments seemed reasonable. Most of their concerns, however, were unfounded. First of all, the airport was there long before there was much of a community to speak of. Complaining about aircraft noise that passes over the house you chose to build or buy near a runway is not a valid argument. The airport was already there and you invaded it's territory, not the other way around. Second, most modern corporate planes are bigger, faster and much quieter than their previous incarnations. A Lear-24, for example, is a much louder jet than a Lear-60 even though it's much smaller. Not much consideration was given to noise early in the jet age. Third, the chances of the airport becoming a commuter hub were slim at best. The International airport had just been expanded and there was no incentive for commuter airlines to set up shop at the smaller airport where people would not be able to make their connecting flights. Finally, lengthening a runway always provides a margin of safety. Too much runway is always better than not having enough. Just ask the parents of six year old Joshua Woods from Leroy, Indiana.