Tawny Eagle,
Semantics, perhaps, and pardon me for jumping on your post if my interpretation is mistaken. Cejkovice's comment was, I think, just stating fact, i.e. that a lot of airports have built-up areas within 1,000ft of the threshold. Not that it was safely acceptable.
Anybody the slightest bit concerned with safety - of crews, passengers and local inhabitants - would prefer a 2000m long cone of uninhabited, preferably paved but if not, flat ploughed land, at either end of a runway.
But life isn't like that, is it. Land's expensive and, funnily enough, it's more expensive near airports that have the potential to draw cargo. And local housing/zoning councils have their own agendas, sometimes more short-term and resembling killing the goose than one would like.
Last edited by broadreach; 22nd Dec 2004 at 23:45.