The clear weak spot of airline travel is the whole airline travel experience. The business aviation industry should be exploiting this.

In 1952 I completed all of the requirements for graduation except several A&E (then) courses so I made a deal with the Principal Mr. Abrahamson which was I was entering the Air Force and would complete my ’shop’ courses there. I went to Reciprocating Engine Mechanics School at Sheppard AFB in Texas where I scored the highest grade recorded to that time, the summer of 1953. I was allowed to pick my station and chose Charleston Muncipal Airport as it was becoming a brand new air base for the 456th Troop Carrier Wing. The Wing eventually completed it’s move from Miami International Airport, where they had been ‘lost’ by the Army Air Corps for years. Meanwhile, a friend, Fred Jensen and I, bought a 1946 Ercoupe with the intentions of rebuilding it. After the AirForce destroyed the wings, we sold the plane at small loss.

I graduated from Aero Mechanics in 1953, along with my classmates who were actually attending the school in Detroit. In 1956 after an honorable discharge, I went back to Detroit and went to work at Chrysler Missle Operations, in final test and checkout.

I worked on the Redstone and Jupiter programs. In the summer of 1957 I decided to take a trip to Alaska and drove the famed Alcan Highway, 3,500 miles of dust, rocks, mud or any combination of the three. I ended up going to work as a patrolman for the Fairbanks City Police Department. In 1958 I began taking flying lessons at FlightWays on Phillips Field. I soloed in Feb 1959, by which time I was working at the Geophysical Inst. of the Uni of Alaska in upper atmospheric physics.

I became a career student pilot, obtaining my private in June of 1968. In 1988, after a hop from Fairbanks to Fiji (4 years) to Phoenix (1 year) to Tokyo (1/2 year) to Europe (2 years) I formed a company back in Phoenix, AZ, Capital Improvement Associates, Inc. which was a project development and management company. In 1989 we obtained a contract to manage the grants, design and construction of an entirely new airport at Lake Havasu City, Az. After about a year of driving back and for the the 300 mile round trip PHX-LHC, I bought a 1968 Piper Arrow 180 and began flying the trip.

I successfully built the airport under budget and within the schedule by means of the FAA AIP and State of Az Airport development grants.

I have flown to the new airport over 100 times and have watched the growth of general aviation with this new facility. I know the residents of LHC are well pleased with their airport. It has impacted all manner of life and commerce in Havasu.

Wow, it got long!

Ernest Kaiser
1156 E. Cochise Dr
Phoenx, AZ 85020-1550
Tel 602-944-8017

I closed CIA Inc 5 years ago, but would still be happy to act as a consultant to a GA airport.

One of the more interesting stories was that of Genova Products of Davison, Michigan. They were the developers of PVC pipe. In a telephone conversation many years ago with the CEO and founder (whose name escapes me), he related to me the difficulty in establishing their product as a standard in the plumbing and housing industry. It was necessary to achieve acceptance by the multitude of governmental entities, especially those establishing building codes.

To achieve this necessary objective, they purchased a MU-2 and even built their own airport (Davison, Genova Airport). They then undertook the scheduling, picking-up and transporting (by air at their local airports) the many local and state officials to their manufacturing and testing facility and established an acceptance and code by which PVC pipe has become a standard nation-wide.

Would anybody care to speculate the financial impact this company has had on our country by virtue of the company airplane and the local GA airport?

I challenge USA Today and NBC to contact Genova Products and cover the role and impact that this one company alone had on our society. And, they are just one of many such situations. Step up folks and do your job, just don’t sensationalize! That would be true reporting!!

The problem we face is that the ATA – and their clients the airlines – are willing to spend huge sums of money to make their point, in this case that we’re sucking the big airports dry.

GA doesn’t have the same budget, even NBAA and NATA.

Now if the Airport group, AAAE would stand up for GA airports the way they do the large air carrier airports and all these groups and their members worked together I think we could pull this off.

Alone, we stand little chance.

And to John who wondered why they don’t just leave GA alone, I can only say that life has a funny way of working out.

But I can tell you that if we continue to keep a low profile, we’re all going to pay the price, one more airport at a time.

Rob Mark

A friends wife was killed in a car accident. She had wanted to be an organ donor. That night the small airfield had 2 Lears and a Baron that picked up the organs flew to other locations which some were probably small GA airports. These organs were then given to waiting recipients. This may not have ever been possible without the proximity of a smaller GA airport. The window of opportunity is very small and seconds can make the difference of a successful transplant or a missed opportunity. How about the Angel Flights that are being made from these airports. What about the relief help for Katrina victims to smaller GA airports. The public needs to be made aware of the importance of GA airports.

Tim

We’ve had some great comments here so far. But yours is one of the best because it is the question that’s on the tip of so many people’s tongues.

It is the one that AOPA, EAA, NBAA and NATA need to answer. How do we mount an offense against an opponent as powerful as ATA and the interests it represents.

I’m going to start making a few suggestions here soon. The simple answer to your question is that we object to ATA and its tactics and the bad publicity they’re dumping on us one person at a time.

That’s one person saying enough.

One person convincing one more person who convinces one more to say enough and that it’s time to stop talking about the value of our GA airports and begin acting like we really believe in the words.

Rob

I use my license and plane in my business, which has improved my ability to purchase materials and work further out of town by being able to supervise jobs more efficiently via small airports.. there is no way I could have built my business in the past 10 years from 1 million to 5 million in sales had it not been for making shorter time out of my presences to help crews and build trust with clients, who are just looking for better follow up and timely responses to meet their needs.

Without small airports my travels and time would have greatly reduced my ability to physically accomplish these goals for our company. The improvements of these small airports are needed to provide safety and increased operations that we in general aviation are in need of. sure this economy has slowed us down some, but who hasn’t been slowed down. but it is also very apparent even in these slower periods of the use and need that we need to do to upgrade small airports and educate more of the community that these airports matter.

Thanks for the time you have given me to respond to this importand issue facing us currently. we need not to forget the use of general aviation in our smaller communities to keep them connected to competitive pricing from outside contractors that can save dying communities because services have gotten too expensive.. we cannot all live or even want to live in large communities/towns etc.

This is America not a third world country. Freedom is still what sets us apart from other countries and nations or have you forgot what price we have paid to be free? take away the small airports and you take away the competitive edge of competition and access to the our out laying communities.

We should correlate the public roads, highways and interstates that most of us use for our cars, to General Aviation Airports and Aircraft.

We can drive our own cars, whenever we want to wherever we choose, we should be able to do the same with flying.

If we don’t defend our rights and support these General Aviation Airports and General Aviation as a whole, we may later be driven of the roads and highways and only be allowed to ride in public and commercial transportation.

The taxes that are paid through fuel purchased for cars and General Aviation Aircraft should be enough to pay for the infrastructure that we use.

Most of the cost of the roads and Airports is for the additional reinforcement and runway size needed for the weight and size of the Big Commercial Truck, Buses and Airline Aircraft.

We in General Aviation do not fly legs of our trip to hub airports just to consolidate the people and freight, fuel permitting we usually fly point to point, from origin to destination. On the other hand Airlines take people to Airports they do not need to go, with the additional traffic that this involves, doubling or tripling the number of takeoffs and landings on bigger airports.

The same Airline people and crewmembers, that defend only their right to use the airspace and airports, for sure would object if they were not being allowed to use their personal transportation to go to and from work, and drive to and when they please, because that is less efficient in the number of people transported or freight carried.

On intersections in roads similar to hub airports, an improper design will make the traffic cross multiple times the same intersection to head onto their desired direction, sometimes up to three times, thus creating unnecessary additional cost and delays.

We in General Aviation have a right to “Freedom of Airspace”.

Fight for fair and just treatment of People and General Aviation.

Stop the Bullying from the Airlines towards General Aviation.

Thank you,

Capt. Rodolfo F. Martinez

And here’s the response I posted there:
Using your articles’ own numbers the Airport Improvement program seems like a good thing, regardless of your distorted arguments. Here’s the math: $15bill. distributed over 2834 airports versus $13bill. distributed over 30 airports. On average that’s $5.3mill. to each small airport vs. $433.3mill. to each large airport. On a per airport basis, small airports get only 1.2% of what large airports get. And those large airports get 82 times as much as the small airports. So where’s the problem.
To open a side issue: Why is it postulated that the problems in the transportation system are solely solvable by large airpot improvements? Isn’t it more related to competition between airlines and their poor financial condition? And wouldn’t improving more smaller airports relieve some of that competition at the larger airports?

You’ve got me all amped up… So I read through everything, but no mention of what I can do to help. So please… enlighten me. I want to act against these ignorant fools, but I don’t know where to start. Please, by all means, shoot me an email: cisco (at) abitofthisabitofthat (.) com

Thank you, let’s Advance and Conquer.