Small Piston Aircraft Lives Matter! Owner Sues SFO

MAKG1 said:
Well, UAL TechOps claims 3500 employees at their SFO facility, so it appears they are alive and well.

It's not obvious that a runway built entirely in the Bay is "feasible." Lots of things are feasible with infinite money. Money is not infinite. And recent history along those lines has not been good, for instance fill subsidence at Osaka. The runway won't do much good if it buckles.
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All I know is what I was reading in the papers 15 years or so ago about the plan that was being proposed and that the FAA was keen on it. It was also reported that the environmentalists were have a fit. I do know that it didn't happen.

I am not a civil engineer and don't play one on TV so I can't comment on the feasibility, costs, technical challenges, etc. I will leave that to you as you seem to have some geotechnical expertise.
 
Everskyward said:
The parallel runways are too close together to allow simultaneous approaches in bad weather. They have tried some technological solutions. Look at the ILS PRM and the LDA PRM. But the minimums for those approaches are pretty high since you need to see the preceding airplane on the parallel.

There was a lot of complaining about the new Denver airport, but we don't have that problem here because we built it. San Francisco has no equivalent flat piece of land or anywhere to expand.
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I was aware of that when I said "send the money elsewhere..." Was also aware of most of the other folks comments about the third runway.

As we saw in Denver it takes an incredible amount of corruption and graft to build a new facility, (Fred Pena's only listed official job is managing his family's money now... Much of it gained by his brother selling the city a bunch of the land...) but if SFO really can't expand...

Kinda wandered off topic though. If grant assurances assure equal access and then a place gets too busy/popular, it becomes a problem. Why pretend to be building an equal access facility at all.

No need to wrap oneself into a pretzel to be PC about it. "This grant is for airlines."

That's their biggest mistake with the things really. We all know they don't want him or anyone else with a Cessna there. Why pretend at all.
 
I guess I'll wander off topic some more and say that San Francisco is one of the only cities I can think of that still uses their original airport site as their main airport.

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Everskyward said:
I guess I'll wander off topic some more and say that San Francisco is one of the only cities I can think of that still uses their original airport site as their main airport.

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They had more than one, of course, but doesn't ORD count?
 
Solution: reopen Crissy Field. Watch every PC-12 and TBM and Cirrus owner flock to it like a TSA agent on a corkscrew. Profit.


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denverpilot said:
They had more than one, of course, but doesn't ORD count?
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I think ORD came long after Midway. As far as airports in San Francisco, the only other one I know of was Crissy Field, already mentioned. But that was military, as it was in the Presidio. There were, and still are, many on the peninsula, but not in the city itself. I'm even wondering if SFO was originally within the city limits.
 
Everskyward said:
I think ORD came long after Midway. As far as airports in San Francisco, the only other one I know of was Crissy Field, already mentioned. But that was military, as it was in the Presidio. There were, and still are, many on the peninsula, but not in the city itself. I'm even wondering if SFO was originally within the city limits.
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Treasure Island was intended as an airport, and did serve as a seaplane port for Pan Am before SFO opened, and San Francisco's first airport was OAK (north field), which is also in its original location.

SFO isn't THAT old. Many of the airports around the Bay predate it, including the final sites of PAO and SQL (both moved across 101).

Crissy Field has one hell of an obstruction off the west end of the runway. I don't think you would want anything faster than a Stearman there.
 
MAKG1 said:
Treasure Island was intended as an airport, and did serve as a seaplane port for Pan Am before SFO opened, and San Francisco's first airport was OAK (north field), which is also in its original location.

SFO isn't THAT old. Many of the airports around the Bay predate it, including the final sites of PAO and SQL (both moved across 101).

Crissy Field has one hell of an obstruction off the west end of the runway. I don't think you would want anything faster than a Stearman there.
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I learned to fly at Oakland North Field so I know it's not in San Francisco, or even that close. Back in the day, you would have needed to take a ferry to get there, or drive around the bay.
 
Everskyward said:
I guess I'll wander off topic some more and say that San Francisco is one of the only cities I can think of that still uses their original airport site as their main airport.

6b775b76dce4c10d961638a371f8c4ea
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I'd say there must be plenty more than San Francisco.

Off the top of my head, PHX and SAN qualify as well.
 
Everskyward said:
I learned to fly at Oakland North Field so I know it's not in San Francisco, or even that close. Back in the day, you would have needed to take a ferry to get there, or drive around the bay.
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You bet. That's why SFO was built, but people (and cargo and especially air mail) did take the ferry to/from Oakland in the 20s routinely to take a plane or train. You STILL can't catch a long distance train in SF; the best you can do is the local commuter lines. San Francisco was a significant seaport, but none of the other modes of transportation served the city well until the late 30s, when the Bay Bridge was built.

Driving around the Bay was a bit rarer, as not that many people had cars in the early 20s, especially in the city. But the ferry system was considerably more extensive than it is now, and was widely used for just about everything. And flying was a major journey at that time.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I'd say there must be plenty more than San Francisco.

Off the top of my head, PHX and SAN qualify as well.
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LAX as well, though, like SFO, it wasn't the major airport in the region until well after World War 2.

Burbank hasn't moved, though Lockheed sure did. That was the main airport (alongside the now-gone Glendale) for Los Angeles before the War.
 
MSP has its original airport, though back in the 20's and 30's there was also commercial service out of STP.
 
redrum4me said:
I guess some people have more money than brains. A minimum $175 landing fee is enough to keep me out of there.
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Well, he has brains enough to know that *based* aircraft do not pay the $175 landing fee.

Lots of misinformation in this thread... the guy *is* making an FAA complaint as well... and over the years, there have been folks whose home or business is SO close to SFO, that it makes sense for them to base there... and why not? ATC is great about bringing pistons in on downwind and fitting them into gaps (I've sat at NorCal to watch it come together)... or landing them on the crossing runway with LAHSO instructions.

The new runway thing got worked out environmentally... after the 1967 addition of the jet runway (now 12/30) at OAK, California passed a law to avoid making SF Bay any smaller... you can still fill it in; you just have to subtract fill elsewhere. Since the bay had shrunk almost by half since the arrival of the Spanish, there was some reason to avoid it becoming a river instead of a bay.

In any case, under SF mayor Willie Brown, a deal was made to return salt ponds near San Jose to the Bay, and construct the new runway at SFO. However, then the great recession of 2007 came along, and the grand plan couldn't be funded... even though the environmental bit had been worked out. Since then, improvements in parallel operations have made the driving force less.

Lots of us operate at airports whose administration hates GA... that's not a good reason to turn our tail and run. Instead, we need to continue to support GA while holding airport owners to the law. That's what this guy is doing, and good for him~!

The fundamental problem in my mind is that some airport administrators have "tidy minds" and in those minds, GA doesn't fit... and they don't mind violating the law to tidy things up. Good for this guy for standing up for the rest of us!

Paul
 
Sam D said:
That just happened about a year ago where 1,000 acres were returned to the bay. Time to fire up the dump trucks? :)
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As long as our government is glued to building trains to nowhere.. *cough* HSR *cough* S.M.A.R.T *cough* we'll never get things done in this state.


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That being said, the Petaluma river has plenty of sediment that they can dredge and barge down to SFO.....


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PaulMillner said:
Well, he has brains enough to know that *based* aircraft do not pay the $175 landing fee.

Lots of misinformation in this thread... the guy *is* making an FAA complaint as well... and over the years, there have been folks whose home or business is SO close to SFO, that it makes sense for them to base there... and why not? ATC is great about bringing pistons in on downwind and fitting them into gaps (I've sat at NorCal to watch it come together)... or landing them on the crossing runway with LAHSO instructions.

The new runway thing got worked out environmentally... after the 1967 addition of the jet runway (now 12/30) at OAK, California passed a law to avoid making SF Bay any smaller... you can still fill it in; you just have to subtract fill elsewhere. Since the bay had shrunk almost by half since the arrival of the Spanish, there was some reason to avoid it becoming a river instead of a bay.

In any case, under SF mayor Willie Brown, a deal was made to return salt ponds near San Jose to the Bay, and construct the new runway at SFO. However, then the great recession of 2007 came along, and the grand plan couldn't be funded... even though the environmental bit had been worked out. Since then, improvements in parallel operations have made the driving force less.

Lots of us operate at airports whose administration hates GA... that's not a good reason to turn our tail and run. Instead, we need to continue to support GA while holding airport owners to the law. That's what this guy is doing, and good for him~!

The fundamental problem in my mind is that some airport administrators have "tidy minds" and in those minds, GA doesn't fit... and they don't mind violating the law to tidy things up. Good for this guy for standing up for the rest of us!

Paul
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Speaking of brains, in your reply you quoted MAKG1 from post #3.
 
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