OK, I am to the point now where I am ready to say I am opposed to closing CR 100E to lengthen the runway at Warsaw Municipal Airport.
Initially, I wasn't convinced, but after the conversations I had this week, I'm pretty sure this is a project not completely born out of necessity, but more out of convenience.
And as careful readers may recall, I stated at the outset of this debate that I don't use CR 100E very often.
But before I get into the reasons why I've come to this revelation, I want to make one observation.
Just because you're opposed to something doesn't mean you have to get all snarky and spiteful about it.
(I am talking about the local level. I will admit to getting a little snarky when writing about, oh, Nancy Pelosi, for example.)
But c'mon people.
Dane Miller thinks the airport expansion is a good idea and letter writers go into attack mode? One comment in particular was stunningly ignorant.
A letter writer wrote: "Mr. Miller should realize that us regular people are the same people who helped him make all of his money. Of course, he probably forgot that about two months after he made it."
Really? Seriously?
Because it seems to me that Miller's concern, commitment and contributions to this community are absolutely unparalleled. No one had done more for "regular people." No one.
The point is, it's always OK to disagree. But you don't have to be a jerk about it and say stuff that's abjectly and demonstrably false. Not to mention just plain stupid.
But I digress.
I spoke with Warsaw Mayor Ernie Wiggins this week.
His take on the situation is pretty simple.
The mayor appoints the aviation board and hires the airport manager. He depends on those people to make the right recommendations.
Wiggins is confident that the aviation board and the airport manager will come to the proper conclusion based on what the pilots at the airport deem to be necessary. After all, those are the people who would know, right?The mayor doesn't have a vote in this thing anyway.
What would have to happen is the airport board would have to make a recommendation to the plan commission. The plan commission would have to and make a recommendation to the city council.
Then the city council would have to vote to close the road.
And even if it got to that point - which I highly doubt it will, by the way - I really don't think enough city council members would have the stomach to vote to close that road.
(City Councilman Joe Thallemer is a non-voting member of the aviation board. He told me he won't vote to close the road unless there is some sort of alternate transportation solution developed so residents north of the airport won't be inconvenienced.)
So what do pilots think?
Well, we all know what Tony Miller thinks. He's a pilot and he thinks closing CR 100E is a really bad idea. He's scheduled a meeting for road-closing opponents at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Warsaw Armory. (Thallemer says he'll be there, by the way.) Fliers for the event have skulls and crossbones on them. (Nice touch, Tony.) Miller also took out a half-page ad in Friday's Times-Union outlining exactly why he thinks closing the road is a bad idea.
And on Wednesday, three pilots - John Sanders, John Sloan and John Noble - stopped by the office to chat. (What is it with Warsaw pilots and the name John?)
I am not going to go through all their resumés but I will say this: They all fly corporate-sized jets and between them they have approximately 57,000 hours of flight time.
So, I think we can all agree they are providing expert opinions. All three agree that a runway extension at Warsaw is not a matter of safety. It's a matter of convenience.
They said, quite simply, if it's not safe, then you don't do it. Is that inconvenient? Of course it is. But it's not unsafe, the pilots say.
For example:
It may be unsafe to take off with a full load of fuel for an international flight if the temperature is too high. The plane might be too heavy.
To be safe, you take off with less fuel and somewhere along the way they have to stop and refuel. You lose a half hour. Inconvenient? You bet. Unsafe? No, the pilots say.
Or say the weather is bad, you're coming in late and there's nobody in the tower to talk to about runway conditions. You have to divert to an airport with a longer runway.
Inconvenient? Absolutely. Unsafe? No, the pilots say.
They also said the airport needs to do what the numbers dictate. All three said the number of flights that are diverted is very small. (By the way, why don't we have that number? I mean, the exact number of diverted flights in say, 2009?)
They also say the idea that the airport would sell more fuel after the expansion is not necessarily true. They say right now corporate-size jets have to come in light and refuel. With a longer runway, they could land with more fuel on board and wouldn't have to buy as much at the airport.
Bottom line is the pilots I've talked to say the runway is OK the way it is. The main point they kept making to me is that it is not an issue of safety. It's an issue of convenience.
I tend to believe them.
If that's the case - and we're talking about convenience - I think the inconvenience of closing CR 100E far exceeds the inconvenience of a shorter runway.
Of course, there's always the chance that this is going to come back and bite me squarely on the patoot 20 years from now when somebody says, "Why didn't those idiots close that road and extend the runway back in 2010 when the FAA was gonna pay for it?"
But I guess that's a chance I'm willing to take.
No one is opposed to a longer runway. They're opposed to closing the road. Can't we work toward a solution where we have it both ways?
