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From: doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: Disappearing airports
Message-ID: <593@terak.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Jun-85 17:11:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: terak.593
Posted: Wed Jun  5 17:11:37 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Jun-85 04:14:57 EDT
References: <14907@mgwess.UUCP> <41@avsdS.UUCP>
Organization: Terak Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Lines: 21

The loss of public airports is bad enough, but the loss of non-tower
airports is getting critical.  Ten years ago there were 12 civil
airports in the Phoenix area which were open to the public, and only
Phoenix-Sky Harbor International had a tower.  Today, there are only
8 public airports, 5 of them with towers.  Within the next five years,
the situation is expected to stabilize at 7 public airports, all with
towers.

As the total number of airports decrease, the number of operations goes
up at the remaining fields.  And as each non-tower airport closes/goes
private/gets a tower, the NORDO traffic moves to the remaining non-tower
fields. So the traffic level at the non-tower fields becomes high enough
that they need towers, and...

I dunno what the owners of NORDO planes are going to do.  But I reckon
I'll be finding out soon.  Glendale Muni is expected to relocate to its
new 24-hour-tower site in a couple of years, and there's quite a large
contingent of antique and classic planes based at Glendale right now.
-- 
Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{ihnp4,seismo,decvax}!noao!terak!doug
               ^^^^^--- soon to be CalComp