Santa Monica Airport Bans Jet Traffic

We need more property manager expertise in today's airport managers.

True -- but more importantly we need stupid, know-nothing bureaucrats to
keep their hands off the airports.

Our airport in Iowa City is a perfect example. At one time, it owned
everything around. Then, in the 50s and 60s, it sold a bunch of land to a
nearby farmer.

Then, in the 80s and 90s, the airport bought most of it back for clear
zones. That farmer's family made MILLIONS on *that* act of stupidity.

Here's an even worse example: Recently, in an effort to make the airport
self-sufficient, a previous airport commission carved off a chunk of airport
land, named it "North Airport Commerce Park", and tried to lease it out to
businesses, in hopes of providing a steady stream of non-tax income to keep
the airport running.

Great idea -- until the city "experts" got ahold of it. After an incredible
series of bureaucratic blunders our airport is now FAR worse off than
before.

Example: When creating the "commerce park" our city "experts" counted the
easements into the total square footage, and came up with a per-acre priced
based on land that no one could use. When the error was discovered, they
simply upped the price per acre to keep the value the same, because "that's
what they needed". This raised the price far above surrounding available
land, and no one wanted it.

Another example: Wal-Mart wanted to buy all the land, for a fantastic
price. Some idiot city bureaucrat didn't file all the zoning paperwork
correctly, which gave the anti-Wal-Mart activists a way to legally challenge
Wal-Mart's purchase.

After several years of screwing around in court, with no end in sight,
Wal-Mart just said "To hell with Iowa City" and walked away from the deal.
The land lost a prime retail area, and the airport lost millions of dollars.

Now, after sitting empty for years, the city is selling the land off at
bargain prices. And NOT giving the airport the money!

So, rather than making the airport self-sufficient, we have:

1. Lost our North/South runway
2. Lost land for future expansion
3. Not gained a nickel for the airport, because the city is going to keep
the money from the land purchase.
4. The businesses they're selling to are crap. Warehouses, outside
storage -- all the junk you DON'T want around your airport.

Talk about a cluster-f*ck. It's truly been an education in just how bad
government bureaucrats can be.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Apr 2, 9:47*pm, Stella Starr wrote:
Larry Dighera wrote:

If you go look at the local paper (it takes a while to load, as they're
back in the 20th century and put a PDF of the thing on their website)
you'll note a couple interesting things, including a number of runway
overrun accidents in recent years. *And after the jump (when the story's
continued to page 17) the aerial photo shows the city snuggled right up
* around the landing strip, a clear example of bad metro development.

Its not surprising. The instrument approach into SMO is one of the
most challenging I've ever flow. It puts you about 1,000 feet AGL at
less than a mile from the numbers. I have a hard time landing in the
Mooney w/o running over. I'm sure the jet jocks that fly in there
regularly must be cheating the approach. I've broken out more than
once only to look straight down at the numbers. Technically its listed
as a circle approach (even though its aligned with the runway) but
I've never seen anyone do the circle, certainly not any jets.

-robert

[Default] On Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:47:18 -0700, Stella Starr
wrote:

We need more property manager expertise in today's airport managers.

We need the appropriate parties to bring suit against the city of
Santa Monica for permitting housing development so close to the
airport.

In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

[Default] On Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:47:18 -0700, Stella Starr
wrote:

We need more property manager expertise in today's airport managers.

We need the appropriate parties to bring suit against the city of
Santa Monica for permitting housing development so close to the
airport.

Have you contacted the Caaliafornia Pilots' Assn?

--
Remove _'s from email address to talk to me.

In article Stella Starr writes:

If you go look at the local paper (it takes a while to load, as they're
back in the 20th century and put a PDF of the thing on their website)
you'll note a couple interesting things, including a number of runway
overrun accidents in recent years. And after the jump (when the story's
continued to page 17) the aerial photo shows the city snuggled right up
around the landing strip, a clear example of bad metro development.

http://www.smdp.com/site/archives/032908.pdf

The story tells of a proposal to buy up homes to give a little safety
room around the airport, but a lot of homeowners resist the idea, which
would be pretty spendy (California real estate -- ya THINK?!) and kind
of after the fact.

We need more property manager expertise in today's airport managers.


I think you will find that there were houses just across the street
from both ends of the runway at Santa Monica well over 30 years ago.

I know that they were there 30 years ago when I first flew in and out
of SMO. They were nowhere near new, then, either. I would expect that
50 to 60 years back there were houses at both ends.

Yes, we need to not build up housing in the desirable area around
airports, but this is not a recent problem. As I mentioned before,
they had a big "NO JETS" on the slope just before runway 21 back in
1977, which was about the time they lost on banning jets then.

(I think they claimed jets were noisier, and lost when it was pointed
out that some jets are quieter than props. But, that was a long time
ago, and I was not that intimately involved with activity there.)


Alan

On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:58:43 -0400, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:

In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

[Default] On Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:47:18 -0700, Stella Starr
wrote:

We need more property manager expertise in today's airport managers.

We need the appropriate parties to bring suit against the city of
Santa Monica for permitting housing development so close to the
airport.

Have you contacted the Caaliafornia Pilots' Assn?


I'm not personally involved in the issue, but the CPA is a good group:
http://www.calpilots.org

Well when you break out why not circle left or right? It would be a good
opportunity to shed some altitude.

John

Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Apr 2, 9:47 pm, Stella Starr wrote:

Larry Dighera wrote:


If you go look at the local paper (it takes a while to load, as they're
back in the 20th century and put a PDF of the thing on their website)
you'll note a couple interesting things, including a number of runway
overrun accidents in recent years. And after the jump (when the story's
continued to page 17) the aerial photo shows the city snuggled right up
around the landing strip, a clear example of bad metro development.


Its not surprising. The instrument approach into SMO is one of the
most challenging I've ever flow. It puts you about 1,000 feet AGL at
less than a mile from the numbers. I have a hard time landing in the
Mooney w/o running over. I'm sure the jet jocks that fly in there
regularly must be cheating the approach. I've broken out more than
once only to look straight down at the numbers. Technically its listed
as a circle approach (even though its aligned with the runway) but
I've never seen anyone do the circle, certainly not any jets.

-robert

On Apr 4, 9:08*am, The Visitor
wrote:
Well when you break out why not circle left or right? It would be a good
opportunity to shed some altitude.

In theory you can tell the tower you are going to do that. I've never
flow the approach without a warning that there was a Gulf Stream or
similar in trail though. I'm not sure what the tower would do if you
said you needed to circle but I wouldn't be surprised if they sent you
back to approach. The "line up" for the approach is pretty far out;
likely because of the dense LA traffic and the fact that there are
always several jets on the approach.
Interestingly tower always provides speed checks on final. Its the
only tower I've ever seen that does that. As you cross the fence you
get a "your fast"; "on speed" etc.

-Robert

Ah, good point. Didn't know it was that busy.

I guess if the ban sticks, a lot of the income will dry up and the
airport will be closer, to being closed. Just one more nail....

John





Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Apr 4, 9:08 am, The Visitor
wrote:

Well when you break out why not circle left or right? It would be a good
opportunity to shed some altitude.


In theory you can tell the tower you are going to do that. I've never
flow the approach without a warning that there was a Gulf Stream or
similar in trail though. I'm not sure what the tower would do if you
said you needed to circle but I wouldn't be surprised if they sent you
back to approach. The "line up" for the approach is pretty far out;
likely because of the dense LA traffic and the fact that there are
always several jets on the approach.
Interestingly tower always provides speed checks on final. Its the
only tower I've ever seen that does that. As you cross the fence you
get a "your fast"; "on speed" etc.

-Robert

On Apr 4, 1:25*pm, The Visitor
wrote:
Ah, good point. Didn't know it was that busy.

I guess if the ban sticks, a lot of the income will dry up and the
airport will be closer, to being closed. Just one more nail....

I suspect that is the point. It would be very difficult to close SMO
right now because of the continuous stream of jets flying in. This is
the primary airport to the stars and generally the well off in LA. By
slowly reducing the airport until its just Cessnas they can eventually
close it without too much attention.

Next best airport is probably Van Nuys but that's over the mountain.
In LA no one measures driving distance in miles, just hours. So Van
Nuys is perhaps an hour and a half from SMO, maybe 2 hours.

-robert