FAA capitulates to city of Santa Monica.
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FAA capitulates to city of Santa Monica.
FAA gives city the authority to shorten runway from 4900 to 3500 and close it entirely in 2028.
Bugger !
https://www.faa.gov/news/press_relea...m?newsId=21394
Bugger !
https://www.faa.gov/news/press_relea...m?newsId=21394
So the "People's Republic" won. I'm sorry to hear that.
To put things into perspective. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...4d-118.4486787
If you'll excuse me for playing the devil's advocate: keeping an aerodrome active when all around is built up is asking for trouble - sooner or later there will be forced landings in the streets or houses or supermarkets. Of course the real question is who allowed the build-up to happen.
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The history of the field was the Douglas company built the DC3 here during WW2 I've heard stories that some of the factory was underground with a park on top to give any japs that may want to bomb it a bum steer. All the houses to the south and to the west were called "Douglas" houses and were built for the factory workers, most were 2 bed 1 bath, 1200 square foot on a 5000 square foot lot and sold for $5000. A lot of those original houses still exist today without modification or addition but now commad $1.5 to $2m so the real estate value to developers for the 270 acres of airport is in the billions. All houses to the immediate north and west of the field are in Santa Monica, the ones to the east and south are in the city of Los Angeles. My house 1 block south on Stanwood has seen all the old neighbors change from Telco workers and tradesmen to new arrivals who are Google, Snapchat and other high tech type folks with a high percentage being from the Indian sub-continent. Of late they are constantly coming to my door asking me to sign petitions to close the airport due to as they say "it's intruding on their lives". I politely decline to sign but explain to them that my method of enjoying my flying hobby and limiting people intruding on MY life was to vote for Trump with a view to enjoying the roll out of his commitment to cancel the H-1B visa program allowing foreign hi tech workers entry to the US. That normally prevents repeated intrusions on my day. .
Last edited by piperboy84; 29th Jan 2017 at 17:12.
asking me to sign petitions to close the airport due to as they say "it's intruding on their lives".
I'd love to see the looks on their faces when you tell them to have sex and travel.
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The history of the field was the Douglas company built the DC3 here during WW2 I've heard stories that some of the factory was underground with a park on top to give any japs that may want to bomb it a bum steer. All the houses to the south and to the west were called "Douglas" houses and were built for the factory workers, most were 2 bed 1 bath, 1200 square foot on a 5000 square foot lot and sold for $5000. A lot of those original houses still exist today without modification or addition but now commad $1.5 to $2m so the real estate value to developers for the 270 acres of airport is in the billions. All houses to the immediate north and west of the field are in Santa Monica, the ones to the east and south are in the city of Los Angeles. My house 1 block south on Stanwood has seen all the old neighbors change from Telco workers and tradesmen to new arrivals who are Google, Snapchat and other high tech type folks with a high percentage being from the Indian sub-continent. Of late they are constantly coming to my door asking me to sign petitions to close the airport due to as they say "it's intruding on their lives". I politely decline to sign but explain to them that my method of enjoying my flying hobby and limiting people intruding on MY life was to vote for Trump with a view to enjoying the roll out of his commitment to cancel the H-1B visa program allowing foreign hi tech workers entry to the US. That normally prevents repeated intrusions on my day. .
Is that the one Harrison Ford parked on the golf course next to it after an engine failure?
What the picture doesn't show is that the golf course is about 100' lower than the threshold of 3. I suspect that Harrison Ford would have been better off continuing and ditching in the ocean off Venice Beach.
Here's a picture I took the day after the accident, when piperboy84 took me for a flight. The wreckage had already been removed.
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Never in my life has one individual gone from high regard to utter contempt so quickly. Such a shame.
If you'll excuse me for playing the devil's advocate: keeping an aerodrome active when all around is built up is asking for trouble - sooner or later there will be forced landings in the streets or houses or supermarkets
Jan, in the US airports are built to serve people, and oddly enough people live in cities. There are few or no better examples of a city that can benefit from GA than greater Los Angeles: traveling from Santa Monica to anywhere takes hours in stop and go traffic, or a few minutes in a light plane. If I lived there (I don't) I think a light plane would be a Godsend in how it allows one to escape quickly from Smell A, maybe the only thing that would make it bearable to live there. Yes, people land those planes in all sort of places in an emergency but the number of people impacted is almost zero, particularly in comparison to people killed in car accidents in the same area. Cities are like that, and light aircraft are a great tool to access the middle of cities. Especially so since single engine aircraft demonstrated reliability good enough to fly over cities... let's say 70 or 80 years ago! In LA they've been used for that purpose ever since.
Piperboy84, when approached by relentlessly self-absorbed people, I too enjoy making amply clear that I don't agree with them, or their agenda. I think many of them in areas like yours, including temporary immigrants buying & selling $1.5M houses, have never been confronted with the idea that somebody might have a different perspective than their own. I think the rather clear lesson in that regard is no bad thing. Good on you.
Last edited by Silvaire1; 30th Jan 2017 at 02:41.
Piperboy84, when approached by relentlessly self-absorbed people, I too enjoy making amply clear that I don't agree with them, or their agenda. I think many of them in areas like yours, including temporary immigrants buying $1.5M houses, have never been confronted with the idea that somebody might have a different perspective than their own. I think the rather clear lesson in that regard is no bad thing. Good on you.
I hope that at least some good can come of it.
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I'm not familiar with Santa Monica airport, but I am extremely familiar with the three Toronto area airports which have closed since I started flying, and a fourth which is on the verge of closing. In all cases the closure was in large part to a shift in the balance of public pressure and increasing land values, to the interest and revenue generated by the airport. The shift was always away from aviation - our industry simply does not create enough revenue to justify the investment in prime real estate for an airport.
General aviation is at best tolerated by the public, but as often disliked and feared. They live their entire lives believing that they have no interest nor benefit derived from GA, so they will make little concession for it. So too, nearly all politicians.
The Toronto airport next to go will be Buttonville, late this year. I have been a regular user of this airport for 40 years. It existed as early as the '30's at that location, as my mother tells of taking flying lessons there in the late '40's. During the most recent 40 years, I have seen this airport go from being "one its own" surrounded by fields, to now being surrounded by built up area. There is nowhere practical to force land near by. There have been several airplane vs building and airplane vs road traffic crashes in recent years. I now fly high and close circuits there, just in case...
This very evening I dined with a pilot owner friend, who has been a Buttonville tenant for 30 years. He is now faced with relocating his 'plane a further 30 minute drive from where he lives, as the next nearest suitable airport. There simply is no other choice. Equally to his dismay, he reports that the very active Buttonville Flying Club will lose it's meeting place, as the next most suitable airport lacks facilities for that.
There is no solution for city dwellers to assure convenient GA facilities, the two are not harmonious. Where they co exist, pilots should think themselves fortunate, and go out of the way to appease the local non pilot citizens to delay the inevitable as long as possible...
I miss these old and convenient airports, as I miss Toronto International CYYZ welcoming GA... yes, I used to fly a 172 and 310 based there. I used to fly that 310 to Meigs Field in Chicago, I miss it too. Anything we can do to preserve these airports is great, but our options are limited.
General aviation is at best tolerated by the public, but as often disliked and feared. They live their entire lives believing that they have no interest nor benefit derived from GA, so they will make little concession for it. So too, nearly all politicians.
The Toronto airport next to go will be Buttonville, late this year. I have been a regular user of this airport for 40 years. It existed as early as the '30's at that location, as my mother tells of taking flying lessons there in the late '40's. During the most recent 40 years, I have seen this airport go from being "one its own" surrounded by fields, to now being surrounded by built up area. There is nowhere practical to force land near by. There have been several airplane vs building and airplane vs road traffic crashes in recent years. I now fly high and close circuits there, just in case...
This very evening I dined with a pilot owner friend, who has been a Buttonville tenant for 30 years. He is now faced with relocating his 'plane a further 30 minute drive from where he lives, as the next nearest suitable airport. There simply is no other choice. Equally to his dismay, he reports that the very active Buttonville Flying Club will lose it's meeting place, as the next most suitable airport lacks facilities for that.
There is no solution for city dwellers to assure convenient GA facilities, the two are not harmonious. Where they co exist, pilots should think themselves fortunate, and go out of the way to appease the local non pilot citizens to delay the inevitable as long as possible...
I miss these old and convenient airports, as I miss Toronto International CYYZ welcoming GA... yes, I used to fly a 172 and 310 based there. I used to fly that 310 to Meigs Field in Chicago, I miss it too. Anything we can do to preserve these airports is great, but our options are limited.
General aviation is at best tolerated by the public, but as often disliked and feared.
What's driving the airport closure situation in some US cities, where more airports are actually needed due to road traffic congestion, is very clear: the prospect of gigantic building permit fees and 1.2% or more annual property tax revenues from whatever is built on that heretofore Federally supported land... which doesn't currently pay much property tax or ground rent. That, plus similar greed among local property owners who would like to flip their homes and move away.
That aside, airports in other US places are definitely disappearing to a degree as the years pass, but I think mainly its because there is less practical need for as many airports now versus then: in most US areas it's easier for an aircraft owner to drive 20 miles to a given airport now than it was to drive 5 miles 70 years ago... when there were so incredibly many US airports. In 1950 there were four GA airports within 12 miles of my house, but the roads to get there were not so good. Now I drive 20 miles in just a few minutes, front door to hangar door, and the facility is much better than any of those 1950 airports. I think big picture, in regard to most areas outside of those big cities like LA where they actually need more GA airports to meet demand, consolidation of airports is a rearrangement to better match the infrastructure on the ground.
Last edited by Silvaire1; 30th Jan 2017 at 03:51.
In the US, there is a wonderful website called Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields. There were many more in the Los Angeles area.
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his commitment to cancel the H-1B visa program allowing foreign hi tech workers entry to the US.
and how is it that you yourself can have homes on 2 different continents yet those of Indian subcontinent can't?
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This is indeed a world wide problem. In Finland, Malmi (another city centre airport) was due to close in December, but reportedly gasps on for a year or two more, though the operator Finnair has quit and it's to be operated by the city council directly in the meantime.
In UK, Wellesbourne hangs by the slender thread of Compulsory Purchase threatened by the local council in the face of many local property owners who stand to make a (large) financial gain if it closes. I'm not confident of a good outcome there.
Santa Monica is not only convenient for an annual industry convention that I attend at Century City, but also for the President who based his helicopter entourage there during the same week and closed down my planned side trip to Catalina Island with his TFR!
So that's three airports frequented by me alone that are on life support. Against that I can set the brand new Saint George (Utah) at which I was the first 'international' arrival, but not many more new airports. Even Saint George replaced a much more convenient downtown airport, now closed but still tantalisingly visible, like Filton or Sheffield City. I suppose Inishboffin off the Connemara coast would count if it ever opened to traffic, and of course the new airport at St Helena definitely counts but is a tiny bit outside my range, so it's not all bad....
In UK, Wellesbourne hangs by the slender thread of Compulsory Purchase threatened by the local council in the face of many local property owners who stand to make a (large) financial gain if it closes. I'm not confident of a good outcome there.
Santa Monica is not only convenient for an annual industry convention that I attend at Century City, but also for the President who based his helicopter entourage there during the same week and closed down my planned side trip to Catalina Island with his TFR!
So that's three airports frequented by me alone that are on life support. Against that I can set the brand new Saint George (Utah) at which I was the first 'international' arrival, but not many more new airports. Even Saint George replaced a much more convenient downtown airport, now closed but still tantalisingly visible, like Filton or Sheffield City. I suppose Inishboffin off the Connemara coast would count if it ever opened to traffic, and of course the new airport at St Helena definitely counts but is a tiny bit outside my range, so it's not all bad....
Saying that one will vote / has voted for T Ronald Dump (for the purposes of winding someone up) and actually doing so are not the same thing at all.
There are certain conclusions being jumped to here.
FBW
There are certain conclusions being jumped to here.
FBW