Security at airports is a tightrope walk. If you're on some rural
airfield, security is really just a matter of knowing who your neighbors
are and who should or shouldn't be entering their airplane.

At larger municipal airports, the key concern is that you may not be
able to know who the folks around you are, so some form of fence and
perhaps a combination lock system is probably appropriate.

I've always been of the opinion that the best security one could buy at
an airport is a regular picnic or cookout where the folks can socialize
and meet the other folks at the airport. Then you're all looking out
for each other because that's what you'd do anyway.

Being anonymous in a very public major city airport can lead to
draconian measures for security because nobody knows you, yet you may
have every reason for being there.

I would never introduce a newcomer to aviation by taking them to an
international airport.

Meanwhile, small private fields are disappearing day by day as the land
around them gets developed for more exurban sprawl. The reason aviation
is dying is the same reason that farming is disappearing. It's gotten
too efficient at what it does and now there are all sorts of regulations
and restrictions as fewer and fewer people are graduating with technical
aspirations in mind. We're becoming victims of our own success.

It's basically a war of mediocrity against those with smarts. And the
moguls of mediocrity are winning. Sigh.

Jake Brodsky