Against airport plan

EDITOR:

My column, "Don't get fooled again on Minden Airport," appeared Feb. 19. A week later came John Garvin's column, "Proposal best way to limit airport growth."

Mr. Garvin says I want "... to retain the present [ineffective] weight ordinance." No, I'm opposed to the ordinance he wants to substitute for that. And I said, "What should really be on the ballot is a referendum on the Airport Master Plan." Not another ineffective ordinance.

I've said in the past that a weight limit is not an effective way to control growth, since it is an operational limit.

Operations are controlled by the FAA, which doesn't like weight limits and is demanding ours be repealed.

The way to control airport growth is through the configuration of airport facilities, something the airport owners (the citizens here) have near complete control over. Want a jet port? Build a jet port. Want a light sport and glider port, build that.

The master plan adopted in 2008 takes things in the wrong direction. It sends the "little guys" to a "new" airport to the east, which clears the decks at the old airport to the west for the "big guys."

As things stand now it is the small aircraft scattered about the west side that make our airport unattractive to the larger, faster, noisier aircraft we don't want here. Get them out of the way and the big guys can come. It's as simple as that.

Mr. Garvin describes well the proposal he supports. He says our runway can handle routine use by aircraft to 75,000 pounds and occasional use to 105,000 pounds. That includes many regional jets and almost all business jets.

His proposal would allow taxiways and ramps that now limit those aircraft to be strengthened to match the runway. It would allow full implementation of the misguided master plan. It would allow any improvement purportedly driven by FAA standards.

The proposal would prevent enlarging the runway. That's irrelevant. We have a huge old military runway as it is, perfectly suited to jets.

As to the prohibition on a control tower, precision approaches and air carrier facilities, does anyone seriously believe that once those become "warranted" there won't be another drive to change the ordinance to allow them, under the guise of safety and economic development? Ordinances are easily changed, the airport configuration is not.

There is one way that our current weight limit is effective. The FAA won't fund airport improvements with it in place. That's why the county wants us to repeal it. So that it can get its hands on FAA funds to do the bidding of aviation boosters by implementing the master plan and getting on with reconfiguring the airport for more larger, faster, noisier aircraft.

I will vote no on this ordinance, not to preserve the old weight limit, but as a protest of the airport master plan that gives away our only real control over the airport we own and operate. I urge others to do the same.

Terry Burnes

Gardnerville