2 Days of El Toro Demonstration Flights Proposed

The Board of Supervisors will decide next week whether to hold two days of commercial flight tests at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station aimed at demonstrating the noise that residents would endure if the base is converted into an airport.

County planners on Tuesday proposed testing a variety of jets including Boeing 747s and 757s--perhaps as early as January. One test would occur on a weekday, the other on a weekend.

The demonstrations are similar to those conducted at John Wayne Airport in 1979 before that airport’s expansion. El Toro boosters believe the new proposal could also reduce noise concerns of South County residents who live around the base.

“This will just let people stand out there and listen to it,” said Newport Beach Mayor Thomas C. Edwards, an airport supporter.

But airport foes complain that two days’ worth of flight testing would not accurately depict the long-term impacts of a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation at El Toro. The flight demonstrations--which are expected to cost more than $2.8 million--would begin at sunrise and end at sunset.

“Obviously, it’s not designed to be an accurate simulation of an airport,” said Paul Eckles, executive director of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, a coalition of South County cities that oppose the airport.

“It appears the only reason to do this is for its propaganda value, and spending $3 million on a propaganda piece is a very expensive way to spend the taxpayers’ money,” Eckles added.

Critics said the proposed demonstrations are flawed because they don’t include the types of late-night and early-morning heavy cargo flights proposed for the El Toro international airport.

“If we can’t draw up scientific conclusions, then why are we having it?” said Bill Kogerman, head of anti-airport group Taxpayers for Responsible Planning. “An airplane coming in at 2 in the afternoon compared to 2 in the morning is a different story.”

County officials said they considered more extensive flight tests but determined it would simply be too expensive. So the county decided on about 40 arrivals and departures a day--far less than the hundreds of flights projected for El Toro by 2020.

“The cost of running a full-scale simulation would be prohibitive,” said El Toro airport spokeswoman Ellen Cox Call.

Under the proposal, the test flights would land from the south, flying over Leisure World in Laguna Hills. They would take off both to the east over parts of Foothill Ranch and Rancho Santa Margarita and to the north over Irvine Lake.

The flight paths follow those proposed in the county’s El Toro airport plan. But the paths have yet to win final approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, and the nation’s top pilots union has raised questions about their safety.

Airport supporters also hope the tests will give a boost to their fledgling plans to begin flying commercial cargo planes out of the base beginning next spring.

“It’s a way to introduce this concept to the Marine Corps,” said Tom Wall, a member of the Citizens Advisory Commission, a county aviation oversight board. “Their airplanes will be gone in March, and my hope is that we can begin leasing the airport to start cargo operations.”

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Test Patterns

County planners have proposed flight demonstrations for a weekend day and a weekday. The demonstrations, including a range of popular commercial jets such as the 747 and 757, could occur as early as January. Airport foes say two days will not accurately depict long-term effects of a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week airport operation. The demonstrations, expected to cost more than $2.8 million, would run from sunrise to sunset. The proposed test landing and takeoff patterns: