Ouch. Where to begin?

The Cedar Rapids airport is easily within 20 minutes of the Iowa City
airport.

This is nonsense. I drive it all the time, and I can't make it in 20
minutes, door to door. At least not legally. It's more like 30.

Small runways for charter planes (athletics)

Well, come see the place on "football Saturdays" this fall. You won't
believe some of the mini-airliners that get in here!

Also, when they close RWY 18/36 in the next year or three, Rwy 07 is slated
to be shortened on the east, and Rwy 25 is to be extended to the west.
They're also supposed to get an ILS approach at that time. (Ha! I'm not
holding my breath...)

Development around the airport- some see an accident into the
Wal-Mart/Menards just waiting to happen. Some recent crashes into
the hill to the north keep this argument going (BTW, I know that
there were reasons for the crashes)

Worse, they're now building a 500 unit apartment complex on that very same
hill. That's a bunch of trouble brewing, for the airport and many other
reasons. (Traffic will be a bitch, for sure, with an extra 500 folks in
such a tiny area.)

Approach/departure over the city Approach/Depature over Kinnick
Stadium
Waste of good land- Why in the world do you need three crossing
runways?

See the note above about closing 18/36. There won't be anyone departing
over the city after that closes.

Proximity to Cedar Rapids- Cedar Rapids- only about 15-20 min. away

Now we're down to 15 minutes? Dang, Jeff, what are you driving nowadays?

Services at Cedar Rapids- Tower, security, ILS approaches, crossing
large runways, pleny of room for more GA hangars, snow removal,
police, fire, general maintenance, good hangars

The horrible thing about Cedar Rapids is the security and commercial
activity. Iowa City has the finest GA airport in the nation -- or at least
it's the best I've seen in almost ten years of buzzing around the country.
Every fly-in guest at the inn comments on it, almost without exception.

Duplication- To the layperson (in fact even to me) it seems to be
close enough to each other that one would do. Iowa city would
not only have no expenses, but Cedar Rapids could become
stronger

Actually, it would make a lot more sense to close the Cedar Rapids tower (a
true waste of the taxpayer's dollar) and transfer the commercial flights
back to Iowa City, from whence they came. But that won't happen either...

Liberals- Iowa City is chuck pack full of liberals that really
don't care about folks rich enough to be able to fly.

Boy, that's for sure. And, as under-employed university folks, they've got
all day to stew about it over a cup of mocha...

Medical flights- Most are by copter- doesn't matter

Actually, most transplant organs arrive in fixed wing aircraft. Speed is
life, and copters often just won't do.

Transplant stuff- 20 minutes to CID no big deal. thats the reason
for the igloo's

They measure the success of those transplants based on the "age" of the
donor organ. 20 minutes (more like 30-35) is forever when you're getting a
lung from Michigan...

FBO's- choice of two in Cedar Rapids (Although you probably would
not count PS Air)

I always liked the guys at PS Air -- they just don't know anything about
running a business. And they sure stiffed Iowa City when they packed up and
fled in the middle of the night. All of our current problems flow all the
way back to those *******s insisting on that stupidly huge hangar.

Dollars- Lots of commercial operations to pay the way. Virtually
none in Iowa City.

The City Council and Mayor of Iowa City have stood firmly against the evils
of "development" for the past 40 years (or so I've been told). They wanted
Iowa City to remain a bucolic, pretty little University town, and enacted
dozens of laws that essentially drove all new business away. (Coralridge
Mall -- the largest in the state -- was supposed to be built in Iowa City.
After hearing all the environmental crap they would be required to do, the
developers walked over to Coralville, and built it the way they wanted it
built.)

Now that Coralville and North Liberty are literally eating Iowa City's
lunch, they seem to be changing their tune. Let's hope it's not too late.

Lack of potential growth- I do not believe that any two of the
three
runways could ever be expanded.

See the note about RWY 25, above. The land has been purchased, and all they
need is the go ahead. (Which may never come, of course.)

Opportunity costs- Current use vs. the tax base of developement.
The newer hangar could have other uses if developed around. Money in
rather than money out looks good. The deal about streets doesn't
hold much water because virtually everybody uses the streets.

Brian Sponcil (an occasional contributor to this group) did some digging
into the Iowa City annual budget, and discovered that we spent as much last
year on "cemetery beautification" as we did on the airport.

That's CEMETERY BEAUTIFICATION, Jeff! I think it's obvious that we can
afford to keep the airport open -- the issue is just a huge smoke-screen put
up by the local politicians, so that they look like they're "doing
something" about the budget deficit. And the liberals in town are glad to
fan the class warfare flames.

Cedar Rapids Airport Commision- I think that they squashed the
Marion
Airport expansion a couple of years ago. It is my opinion that
they
will get in your shorts also (I am golfing with one of the
commission
members this week. I will pick his brain)

??? I don't know anything about this. Can you expand on this a bit -- it
must've been before we moved here in '97?

Plenty of land around the Cedar Rapids Airport- Enough room for a
re-located aviation themed hotel

True -- but there's little reason to visit Cedar Rapids. (Sorry!)

It is certainly not that I would like to see it closed, they just have
plenty of reasons to close it. I personally feel that it is just a
matter of time.

Well, that's probably true of all but a dozen or so airports in the country.
I just hope that the inevitable happens long after I've flown my final
flight.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"