Flight Plans for El Toro and John Wayne

Re “Hoping for a Victory Lap” (photo, May 19, noting the event to launch a petition drive for a March measure calling for a park instead of an airport at El Toro):

A giant park? Great idea. We can build one at John Wayne Airport. South County people say El Toro isn’t needed. They say we should use Ontario, Long Beach, LAX and any other convenient airport we can find. So we say John Wayne isn’t needed either. We can rip out the runways, taxiways and hangars as they want to do at El Toro. Then we will plant grass and trees and build a pretty lake north of the San Diego Freeway where the shuttle parking is.

Won’t that be nice? The new terminal building? What a great shopping mall it will be, with all that parking in those parking structures. We will call it the Giant Park Mall.

John A. Gardiner

Costa Mesa

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Without a major airport at El Toro, it is certain that John Wayne will be expanded in the next few years to accommodate the air passenger demand developing within Orange County and predicted by many reliable sources such as the Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG). However, JWA will need another 700 acres to double its current allowable passenger use by 2010. The condemnation, removal of existing businesses and acquisition of this land bounded by the Costa Mesa and Corona del Mar freeways has been estimated at several billion dollars.

That cost is just the beginning, because hundreds of homes, schools and businesses in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach will be rendered unusable without major structural and acoustical modifications costing many thousands of dollars each. The total cost of this destruction cannot be determined in dollars because it will uproot and affect many families who have established their homes and built their lives in this desirable community. In contrast, there is not a single home within 1 1/2 miles of El Toro runways and the government-mandated noise buffer zone around the airport excludes all residences.

Tom Wilson will probably not be around when John Wayne expands, but Todd Spitzer, Larry Agran, Meg Waters, Paul Eckles and many of their South County political cohorts will be and will suffer the backlash ensuing from their reprehensible positions.

Ralph P. Morgan Jr.

Costa Mesa

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There is a saying: be careful what you ask for. You may get it. Our neighbors in Newport Beach should consider this carefully because if El Toro international airport is built, they may be deluged with far more noise than they now sustain.

Not only will they get hit from John Wayne Airport but from El Toro as well. Why? Because airplanes will take off to the west over Irvine and Newport Beach. Contrary to what it wants us to believe, the county will not determine which runways will be used. Nor will the Federal Aviation Administration, nor the air-traffic controllers, nor the airlines. Only the pilots will decide which runway to use for each takeoff. The pilot is solely responsible for the safety of the flight. Pilots will elect to take off into the wind, downhill, avoiding terrain: in other words, to the west. Any other runway on most days would be less safe, because the pilot must assume there might be engine failure after liftoff. This is not pessimism but prudence. Furthermore, the FAA dictates that the pilot must be able to maneuver the airplane during this emergency situation without requiring exceptional piloting skills.

A better solution for Newport Beach would be to extend John Wayne Airport’s runway over the San Diego Freeway. This would allow airplanes to gain more altitude before reaching the coast, resulting in less noise. The landing threshold remains where it is, precluding the use of larger aircraft in the future (displaced threshold).

Newport Beach may be shooting itself in the foot if it thinks an El Toro airport will bring peace and quiet. Wait until lumbering, fully loaded 747s fly overhead 24 hours a day. Newport Beach ain’t heard nothing yet. But then it will be too late.

Jake Jacobs

Irvine

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I have to laugh when I read comments from Newport Beach and Santa Ana Heights regarding the airport. They are so positive that those of us living in South County are arrogant airheads.

These people actually believe that you could put a park next to an airport that has departing and arriving flights 24 hours a day seven days a week. We should really enjoy playing ball and watching our children run and play while the pollutants from the planes are contaminating the park, and the noise from the jets would make that park a wonderful place. Get real, people!

But the comment that made me laugh most was that all of South County should move to Iowa! Now if we all did that, there definitely is no need for an airport at El Toro, is there?

These people truly believe that the three pro-airport supervisors are telling them the truth. Those are the same three supervisors who decided that 67% of the people in Orange County are idiots for passing Measure F. They are in effect using our money to sue us because they didn’t like that we passed a measure that fouled up their plans.

And wouldn’t it be funny if the airport went in and, lo and behold, the supervisors made a miscalculation (oops) and now the plane flight path would be directly over Newport Beach 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no curfew! How would Newport Beach and Santa Ana Heights love that one?

Julie Benken

Lake Forest

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Re “Supervisors OK $3-Million Deal for El Toro Info Drive,” May 2:

Why is Orange County spending a whopping $8 million to publicize the “need” for a second Orange County airport, when John Wayne Airport is advertising its “crowd-free” status (https://www.ocair.com ad in The Times, April 22)?

Julie Bixby

Huntington Beach

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On the El Toro airport, for the moment assume that you have plenty of money. What would you do? Move a lot of dirt and make the runways right. Aircraft of the present and future have a lot of power--a normal breeze isn’t the main thing. The aircraft can take off and land with it or against it.

So, make two widely separated runways to the northeast. At the west end, the terminal and parking is a multistory structure whereby cars drive in at street level and go up to the terminal/gate level. Aircraft, on most days, land from the east and also take off to the east. The mountains there aren’t much of a problem, because the runways are already high. On that small percentage of the hours of the year that there is a very strong wind, either takeoffs or landings would be reversed.

Where would you get this much money? Lease some of the El Toro land for commercial use, and sell quite a bit of the John Wayne land. John Wayne would eventually be used only for private planes. The El Toro airport would be one of the best in the world for the next 100 years.

Charles Gould

Fullerton

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I have come up with a solution to what we can do about El Toro Marine base. As I was driving through the base the other day I noticed all the enlisted men’s barracks and the officers’ quarters just sitting there not being used. Why not use the officers’ quarters as low-cost housing and the enlisted men’s barracks for the homeless? The buildings from the PX are still there and can be opened again very easily.

Until we have decided what we are going to do with El Toro, why not let the people who could benefit from it most use it? Parks, a stable, gyms and golf course could all be opened to the public and be enjoyed instead of just deteriorating.

Taylor Oxee

Laguna Niguel