Citizens Panel Asks L.A. to Restrict Van Nuys Airport Practice Flights

Ending a three-month wrangle, the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council has voted to urge the City Council to ban touch-and-go flying practice at the airport at night, on weekends and on holidays.

The proposed ban brought energetic protests from pilots and flight-school operators. Touch-and-go practice--in which a pilot lands, slows, and then takes off again without stopping--is a fundamental part of flight training and is needed by many licensed pilots to meet experience requirements.

An airport spokesman said touch-and-go operations account for about 43% of the airport’s traffic, or about 16,000 landings and takeoffs a month. He said about 45 people at the airport are involved in flight training, which brings a $2.1-million annual economic benefit to the area.

Commissioners Act Next

The council’s action will be relayed to the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners, which can reject it, modify it or recommend that the City Council approve it.

The action Tuesday was the first major recommendation made by the advisory council since it was established in 1985 by the City Council and airport commissioners to give citizens a voice in airport operations.

Since 1981, touch-and-go landings have been prohibited from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. in the summer and from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. the rest of the year. A curfew limits all traffic from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Under the proposal, touch-and-go landings would be permitted only from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, except on national holidays.

Flight-school operators protested that the restrictions would eliminate half their business because most student pilots have jobs and can practice only during their free time--in the evening and on weekends and holidays.

The proposal was submitted by advisory council member Don Schultz, president of Ban Airport Noise, a group formed to combat noise from Burbank and Van Nuys airports.

Clay Lacey, president of the Van Nuys Airport Assn., made up of users of the airport, said pilots and flight schools would work to defeat the proposal.

He argued that it will increase the amount of time student pilots are in the air by forcing them to practice landings at outlying airports or come to a halt at Van Nuys before taking off again--increasing expenses, aircraft noise and air-traffic congestion.

Lacey complained that most public comment opposed the proposal, which he called the work of “the same few vocal people . . . who always vote against anything to do with airplanes.”