Letter of the week

Here are some suggestions for John Wayne Airport:

Noise reduction:

Encourage airline companies to use the quietest airplanes available to

serve Orange County by providing a landing fee subsidy in proportion to

the degree of quietness and/or a landing fee penalty for the noisiest

planes.

Accelerate county funding to buy and/or soundproof homes in the

currently affected zones.

More actively encourage Congress, airframe and engine manufacturers to

research and fund aircraft noise reduction programs.

Provide seed money to the universities in Southern California to

research the problem of noise reduction at John Wayne. Make California

the center of studies and improvements in this area.

Connect Southern California airports with advanced high speed ground

transportation to reduce local connecting flights between airports and

provide better access for local residents and visitors to airport

transportation hubs.

Build takeoff exhaust noise deflectors at both ends of the runways to

take care of both north and south takeoffs. Currently the south taxiing

takeoff noise can be heard up to eight miles away in Tustin and Irvine at

45 degrees off the runway axis. Deflectors that would send the noise

upward would reduce the takeoff noise for all communities surrounding the

airport.

Build out the runways the additional several hundred feet that are

available so that takeoffs would be farther from the end of the runway,

and thus quieter as well as providing additional measures of safety.

Investigate the limits of onshore wind velocity on takeoffs at John

Wayne as a function of any of the above possible changes.

Airport operating hour expansion:

Combine with South County cities, which are strongly opposed to night

flight operations, to form a coalition that uses political and market

forces to pressure airlines and government to honor a no night flight

policy for John Wayne.

Those of us who oppose 24-hour airports near our homes have no desire

to impose such 24-hour airport operating conditions on the neighbors of

John Wayne--as long as you neighbors do not wish to impose a 24-hour

operational airport on us.

Save the bay:

Limit airport operations dumping pollutants on the San Diego Creek

basin. Eliminating an airport at El Toro designed for two and one-half to

five times the capacity of John Wayne is a great start to helping save

the bay. Improving fuels and engines is another solution. Reducing the

takeoff fuel consumption per passenger is another.

Requiring and actively evaluating in-depth studies, called

environmental impact reports, on up-basin projects should reduce

development effects on the fragile Newport Bay.

Be more proactive and cooperative in basin water development, storm

runoff, regular drain cleanups and plantings.

Miscellaneous:

Realize that your neighbors also bear considerable transportation

noise and contamination impacts from the freeways, trains, intercounty

buses and trucks and low-flying aircraft. Aircraft now regularly and

systematically use the formerly off-limits El Toro airspace at all hours.

Also, now northern takeoffs from John Wayne which proceed north, south or

east regularly overfly Tustin and Irvine. Most of us non-Newporters bear

these transportation impacts without the cooler temperatures, strong

breezes, and more convenient access if not a view of the water enjoyed

most of the Daily Pilot’s readers.

A good message for you to send to your neighbors is to stop the

funding of those spokesmen and politicians whose rhetoric makes

cooperation with your neighbors on solving your problems that much more

difficult.

Solving problems is often the superior solution compared with

transferring problems to others or moving away from them. Too often,

unsolved problems come back to bother you again.

DON STEWART

Irvine