El Toro Base Seeks to Move Carrier-Landing Practice

In what is widely viewed as a move to improve relations with neighboring communities, the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station has submitted a $30-million budget request to move the bulk of its aircraft carrier-landing practice to Twentynine Palms.

On the eve of a vote in Orange County that could again open the Marine base to scrutiny for conversion to a commercial airfield, El Toro’s commander, Gen. William A. Bloomer, said Tuesday that the base is seeking approval to construct a new runway at Twentynine Palms for simulated aircraft carrier takeoffs and landings.

Irritation Source

The noisy, close-to-the-ground carrier landings have long been a source of irritation to Irvine, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, El Toro and Laguna Hills, communities which surround the El Toro base.

They have also been a point of friction with the Irvine Co., which Bloomer said may have struck “the final blow” to base air carrier operations with plans for a number of new high-rise developments near the flight paths of the low-flying jets.

Bloomer estimated that up to 90% of the carrier-practice operations could be moved to the Marine Corps base at Twentynine Palms, in the Mojave Desert northeast of Palm Springs, if the new runway and support facilities are built.

At this point, he said, the Marine Corps still must decide whether to include the money in its overall budget request, and the entire package then must be approved by Congress.

Chances ‘Fair’

If approved, the project could become part of the military construction budget for the 1987 fiscal year. It could go to Congress as early as next January.

“It’s still in the very nebulous planning stages,” Bloomer said, but he added that chances of final approval are “fair. It’s not a pipe dream. It’s one that is being seriously considered at the headquarters level right now.”

The commanding officer’s announcement comes as the Orange County Board of Supervisors today will take up a controversial expansion plan for John Wayne Airport. The board is also likely to approve a renewed search for a second commercial airport site, and El Toro--despite vigorous opposition from the Marine Corps--is frequently mentioned as the most likely prospect.

Bloomer said he would testify at today’s board hearing on airport facilities, emphasizing again the Marine Corps’ commitment to protecting the decades-old flight operations base, which he estimated would cost as much as $7 billion to relocate.

“We have a long-term commitment here, and that extends well into the 21st Century,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “The majority of people in Orange County want us to stay.”

Marines Plan to Stay

While he conceded that the attempt to move carrier-practice operations out of El Toro might be viewed as a prelude to the base’s eventual withdrawal from rapidly urbanizing south Orange County, Bloomer said it, in fact, reflects quite the opposite: a conscious effort on the base’s part to ease opposition to military operations and settle in for the long term.

While a full range of military flight activities is conducted at the El Toro base, Marine Corps officials concede that it is the carrier-landing training that is the greatest irritant to the more than 200,000 residents who live in the surrounding communities.

Designed to prepare pilots to land their jets on the tiny, pitching deck of an aircraft carrier, the carrier-practice operations require pilots to fly patterns just 600 feet above the ground at relatively high-power settings. The practice sessions, which occur periodically throughout the year, are conducted at all hours of the day and night and may include four jets or more in the air at one time, spaced just 30 seconds apart.

5,152 Landings in ’84

A total of 5,152 carrier-practice landings were conducted at El Toro during 1984.

While some of the carrier practice is conducted at the Navy’s San Clemente Island, it is difficult to schedule time there in competition with other Navy flying squadrons, according to Lt. Col. Bobbi Weinberger. “We need a place to practice more at our training schedule convenience, rather than on somebody else’s schedule.”

Marine Corps officials said the proposal for Twentynine Palms includes only a “bare-bones runway” and limited ground facilities, such as parking. Currently, the base has only a temporary runway used for amphibious-landing practice.

The Marines’ carrier operations became controversial last June during ground-breaking ceremonies for the new Irvine Medical Center, scheduled for construction on a site donated by the Irvine Co. and vigorously opposed by Marine Corps officials.

City officials, complaining that three Marine jets “buzzed” onlookers during the ceremony, wrote to the Department of Defense and asked for a halt to the carrier-training operations.

“The city can no longer be satisfied with the type of abuse we have had and continue to experience from erratic jet overflights . . . . It is time for the city to pursue stronger steps to ensure that the public health and safety of our citizens are better protected from certain types of jet aircraft practice exercises being conducted by your command,” the city wrote.

Maj. Gen. Clayton L. Comfort, commander of the 3rd Tactical Air Wing, in his reply, complained again about the hospital location and Irvine Co. proposals to build hotels, motels and child day-care centers on its Golden Triangle property within the base’s main aircraft traffic pattern.

Urges Review by Irvine

“In assessing its priorities, I strongly recommend that the Irvine City Council carefully review the relationship of national defense to the health and welfare of the populace and that relationship to the motives of major landowners and developers,” Comfort wrote. “Maximization of profits is indeed a justifiable goal; however, it does have its place in the scheme of things and does not, in my opinion, have primacy.”

The Irvine Co.’s proposals for high-rises in the Golden Triangle area near the intersection of the San Diego, Santa Ana and Laguna freeways is especially problematical for the Marine Corps’ carrier-training operations because the jets pass so near the area. Landing on the left runway, the general said, would require pilots to make a 180-degree turn around the hotels. “It would be like flying around pylons in an air race.”

At night, Bloomer added, it would be difficult for pilots to pick out runway lights and other landing cues from among the building lights. “The building of high-rise hotels in that Golden Triangle would, I think, be the final blow to our ability to fly field carrier-landing practice landings at El Toro . . . . We hope to have Twentynine Palms in place by then.”

Monica Florian, in charge of governmental relations for the Irvine Co., said the proposal to move most carrier operations to Twentynine Palms “would go a long way in ensuring the long-term compatibility of that base with the surrounding communities . . . . It’s probably the most irritating or troublesome aspect of the military operation.”

Cites Hospital Fight

Supervisor Bruce Nestande, whose district includes the base and most of the surrounding communities, said he believes the Marine Corps decided to retrench after losing the battle over the location of the new Irvine hospital.

“This is simply, in my estimation, a mitigation on their part of saying, ‘Fine, you have forced the issue on the most controversial issue of all, the hospital, and if we can find an alternative place to do this touch-and-go stuff, we’ll do it. But you’ve got to help us through Congress,’ ” Nestande said, adding, “It goes without saying that I will.”

Irvine Mayor David Sills said the city would welcome a partial relocation of the carrier training exercises, both from a noise and safety standpoint.

‘Emotional Upheaval’

“You have a large urban area under those flight patterns now,” he said. “Carrier landing patterns are very complicated maneuvers for even the best pilots, and I have always felt it’s in the best interest of the Marine Corps to have them flying those maneuvers out in the desert, or over water, because sooner or later, I think, there is the possibility that a plane will come down. And if it comes down over an urban area, there will be a lot of emotional upheaval over the whole extent of those operations.”

Sills added, “I know what a lot of people are going to be thinking, that this makes El Toro a lot more attractive for commercial (airline) use . . . . But for anybody to look at El Toro as an alternative in this century is really blind to the political facts of life. If Newport Beach can stall the John Wayne Airport expansion for as long as it has, let’s remember that Irvine is significantly larger than Newport Beach, and has several other areas that would join it in opposing commercialization of El Toro.”