On final approach? http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060604/news_1n4miramar.html
Airport board poised to pick Miramar as Lindbergh Field replacement By Jeff Ristine STAFF WRITER June 4, 2006 <In 1994, when the installation was still a Navy base, a ballot measure pushed by developer Doug Manchester was designed to gauge support for a Miramar airport should the military ever move out. It passed, 52 percent to 48 percent. This time, worried about the perception that it might be trying to force out the Marine Corps, the airport authority kept its proposal mainly within the realm of joint use and not a takeover. Doing so meant the plans had to be built around the F-18, a fighter/attack aircraft that operates from carriers. It delivers 500-and 2,000-pound bombs, and can be equipped with air-to-air or air-to-ground missiles. Miramar has eight squadrons of F-18s. Those 150 planes are the primary cause of noise projected for communities around the airport. Field carrier landing practice at Miramar puts the aircraft into left-hand turns after taking off to the west and looping back over the base and the city landfill. The runway is treated as a carrier deck, where a left turn keeps the carrier's superstructure out of the way. Groups of six to eight aircraft cycle through as many as a dozen touch-and-go takeoffs and landings at a time - "2½ minutes around the racetrack," as Lt. Col. Duane Pinney, Miramar director of safety, puts it. To avoid crossing paths with civilian air traffic, the joint-use plan proposes shifting carrier landing practice to the southernmost civilian runway. It's the pivotal feature of the entire plan, attempting to preserve military operations but with an entirely new set of problems. Operating in airspace the military doesn't normally use today would add more than 15,000 people in Tierrasanta, Scripps Ranch, Mira Mesa, Kearny Mesa and Clairemont to areas of "adverse" noise impacts, now confined largely to the base. The new airspace for the F-18s also expands the boundaries of a footprint around Miramar designed to depict where a crash - should one occur - is considered most likely. It would add more than 4,000 acres to the Miramar "accident potential zone," including more than 580 acres of residential property with a population of more than 8,700. Miramar officers are incredulous that the discussion doesn't simply stop there. Col. Paul C. Christian, commanding officer of the base, also wonders whether the airport planners have considered the wasted fuel and reduced training that would result from even a modest delay for military aircraft. Worse yet would be a jet returning on minimal fuel and then encountering some complication posed by the commercial activity, he said. The right-hand turning patterns envisioned for some military operations would run against long-standing training procedures. A further issue is the bombs and other ordnance stored at East Miramar and transported to the base's Combat Aircraft Loading Area when needed. Miramar officials say the consultants haven't identified a good place to relocate the loading area, which occupies land needed for a new runway. Col. Michael Brooker, director of aviation policy for Marine Corps Installations West, notes that the airport authority often refers to Miramar's 23,000 acres, as if to suggest there's plenty of room for company. "The reason we have that is so we have a buffer between what's on the base and what's off the base, so we can do our operations with the least impact to the surrounding communities," Brooker said.> --------------------- What we need is a similar account of how the Indian Navy is operating at Dabolim. [Oh yeah, that overused excuse of "security reasons" for not opening up! B.S.] _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list (Goanet@goanet.org)