HWA - Fly or No Fly?

I wish to state my emphatic support of Senator Apodaca's recent legislation to keep Horace Williams Airport open in Chapel Hill.

This sensible, community-minded and fiscally responsible legislation should be made law as soon as is practical.  The citizens of the entire State can not simply sit around while bureaucrats in one small town devalue OUR mutual State investment in medical services, research, and the bounty it returns to each of us, no matter where we live in North Carolina.  That is, plain and simply the case:  Horace Williams Airport is a State-wide treasure, which allows the sharing of a tremendous medical resource with ALL the State's residents.

This airport must NOT be a pawn in a shell game of selfish interests, played by short-sighted land developers situated in one community.  Instead, the citizens of the ENTIRE State must insist that THEIR rapid air access to UNC Hospitals and UNC medical school / AHEC resources be replaced, if necessary, and not eliminated.  Facilities at RDU are wholly unacceptable as a 'replacement' because the 24-mile one-way road trip to that facility can easily take an hour.

I live here in Chapel Hill, near the UNC Hospitals, have lived here since 1990, and I drive a round-trip to RDU every day.  I have been doing it for years.   NOBODY else can say, with the authority I command, how inefficient this is, and how unsuitable for medical purposes that site would be.

I am not a pilot, and I do not use the Horace Williams Airport myself.  I am simply a concerned citizen who knows what a valuable resource is when he sees it.  I can't think of any peer University that does not have ready access to a proximal general aviation airfield.  It is incomprehensible to me that the UNC Trustees have been so cavalier about squandering the 'gold nugget' asset that is Horace Williams Airport.

There is an excellent alternative site for a replacement airport; people just don't know about it.  This site is just south of Chapel Hill, and adjacent to an already-existing private airfield.  I am willing to share information about this alternative site to anyone willing to discuss it.

Before making my own comments, it's worth having the text of the bill: 

SECTION 1.  The Horace Williams Airport, in Orange County, which is owned by The University of North Carolina, shall not be closed until a new airport for service for the same geographical area is built within 10 nautical miles of the airport's current location, is open for service, and is certified by proper aviation authorities to allow incoming and outgoing flights.

SECTION 2.  The University of North Carolina shall not expend any further funds for planning, design, or materials for a hangar at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport to support AHEC medical flights. No appropriation shall be made that provides funds for operations of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Medical Air at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

Fred, as you know, I have always been unconvinced about the ability of the University (not to mention the town) to "fly in the face" of the general aviation lobby regarding HWA. Your history just skims the surface of the end runs and power-plays to keep it open, and I was struck by Sen. Apodaca's claim that he isn't optimistic about his bill's chances. He went to the trouble of filing it for some reason, and I doubt if mere protest was the motivation. I'd say it's just the opening volley of a larger full-court press, which will be supported in the public forum, and behind closed doors, by "friends" of general aviation and particularly HWA.

TALKING POINTS, PURPOSE OF AIRPORT: It's worth remembering their talking points, which always focus on implying that the airport is primarily for medical health care delivery -- with dramatic reference to saving lives -- and always assert what an asset to community/state it is.

Apodaca's and inventor6's statements both refer to the MedAir services as if they were the main use of the airport. As we know from more than one study, MedAir flights actually represent a minority of the flights in and out of HWA, and of those, only some are actually health related (some are commandeered for University business), and very, very few flights entail actually flying patients to Chapel Hill. (Remember that emergency transport is taken care of by helicopter services directly to the hospitals.)

However, every bill to keep HWA open has been carefully worded to make sure the airport will be available to all general aviation traffic, not just for University/MedAir use -- and Apodaca's is no exception (see Section 1 above). AOPA’s mission has always been to force airport owners to keep their airports open, regardless of the financial, administrative, ecological, or social burdens – never mind the owners’ own choice of what to do with their own land.

No surprise here, either.

THE 10-MILE RADIUS: The choice of 10-mile radius is more interesting. That circle scribes the larger southern half of Orange County, a swath of northern Chatham County, and a chunk of Durham county that’s largely developed. The Talbert & Bright study to identify (permanent) replacement airports for MedAir flights (http://research.unc.edu/cn/concept/Talbert_Bright_files/frame.htm) used a radius of 25 minutes’ travel-time, taking into better account the realities of ground travel and also providing a little more geographic flexibility.

The T&B study recommended RDU as the first choice alternate, with the runner up a site in far southwestern Orange County, close to the Alamance line, south of Rte. 54. RDU is 16 miles away; “Airport H” would apparently be right at the 10-mile mark. T&B chose RDU on the basis of costs to the University (and by extension, the taxpayers) and the needs of the MedAir flights. Obviously, T&B were not charged with worrying about convenience for general aviation (although they did include non-medical use of the MedAir planes); but they did take into account convenience of commuting from not just UNC-CH but other participants' locations.

A UNIVERSITY AIRPORT? If efforts to obscure the real reasons behind the fight keep the airport open -- by not building a hangar at RDU -- seem both cynical and self-serving, they also seem, at this point, unnecessary. There is an argument -- one with both pros (education, service, prestige, convenience) and cons (ever-increasing costs to the taxpayers, and security and liability issues) -- for a University to maintain an airport.

The main problem with HWA has been where it is.

I may be the only one who remembers this, but at one time (was it as much as 7 or 8 years ago?) amid one of the more serious confrontations between AOPA, UNC-CH, the GA, and the Town, pro-airport lobbyists were calling for immediate action to start planning a new airport, claiming that there was plenty of Federal money to do so, just for the asking. At that time, the argument was designed to delay closure of HWA until the new airport could be opened - and time frames of as little as 4 or 5 years were cited.

The more cynical of the pro-closure advocates, myself included, believed the stalling tactic was no more than that, intended mainly to keep the airport open until another, new, University administration and Board could be convinced to drop Carolina North plans and keep HWA open. And that itself may be part of the thinking behind actions such as Sen. Apodaca’s bill – the “landgrab” comment certainly suggests so.

In any case, at the time, it occurred to me that it is, indeed, strange that a state touted as "First in Flight" should not have a full-fledged aviation education program associated with at least one of the University campuses. (There is an aviation-engineering program, I believe, at Wilmington, but not a full department of aviation.) It struck me that the very wealthy AOPA lobbyists along with other like-minded organizations might well embark on helping to set-up just such a program in association with a new, state-of-the-art airport, located somewhere in the state other than in the middle of a town.

Although I doubted that quite as much Federal money was really as available as claimed, it seemed to me that some of the time and money spent trying to keep HWA open could certainly have been used better to pursue such a project.

Had they started back then, think what they might have now.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a licensed private pilot that has not used that license in 33 years. From the time of being a young boy, I have always had an interest in aviation started out building model airplanes and even u-control. Not being able to afford the flight time to be safe while raising a family I gave up flying private aircraft. Two years ago I took up building and flying (I mean crashing) RC model airplanes as a hobby. Therefore, I have always been interested in Horace Williams. I was sad that the flying club left Horace Williams and had been considering joining that club before other problems nixed that notion.

I do not know if this bill is right or not but general aviation ever since the early days of aviation has been part of this country. In Alaska, private aircraft are a major means of transportation. I guarantee you that not all pilots are rich and the AOPA is not just full of rich lobbyists who have gobs of money to throw around. If we would talking AARP instead of AOPA then you would be talking serious money. There are many pilots who eek their way through just barely managing to practice their love affair with aviation. Most small general aviation air fields exist from day to day never knowing if they are going to be alive next month.

Even if Horace Williams is in the wrong spot, I do believe it is advantageous to the community to have a general aviation airport within its borders and a reasonable distance from the University.

By the way, I am also acrophobic. I do not like to get on ladders. An acropobic pilot is an interesting combination of words.

I have to say that ever since I moved here many years ago I thought it was somewhat crazy that there was an airport in Chapel Hill. 

The bill says HW can't be closed until another airport is open within 10 nautical miles of HW, which someone pointed out converts to 11.5 statute miles.  When I bring up mapquest and use my fingers as measuring sticks it looks to me that the perimeter of RDU is 12-14 statute miles from the perimeter of HW.  Maybe we could amend the bill to include extending the official perimeter of RDU by a couple miles and then it'd be close enough to HW that HW could be closed even if the bill was passed.

It's easy to get swept up into the pro-con arguments about general aviation, about airport locations, and about HWA specifically, but if you think about it, the point of Fred's post and the pivotal issue in general is: who gets to decide?

Is it the University? Is it the legislature? Is it a host town? Voters, residents, taxpayers?

The land and the administration of it is the University's, but history has shown that, when it comes right down to it, the legislature will take the final word away from the University -- at least when we're talking specifically about HWA. And it has been the airport's role in the statewide AHEC MedFlight program that has given bill-writers special clout to rank keep-the-airport interests' priority over University wishes.

Note the last line of yesterday's N&O piece: "Apodaca said the airport is important for patient safety. He called the university's plans a 'land grab' for Carolina to expand an office park."

The reference to "patient safety" is, as I said before, a melodramatic red-herring misrepresentation. AHEC is for education and MedAir rarely gets involved in direct patient care.

The "land grab" comment, as others have pointed out, assumes it's not the University's land to begin with. Logically, you can't grab your own land.

However, what Apodaca and the four other "drafters" of the bill are doing is staking the legislature's claim to be the deciders.

If Apodaca et al are genuinely interested in pursuing a new airport elsewhere (including in Orange County if land can be found and agreements reached), fine, great -- although there will still be the question of who gets to make decisions once a site is settled on.

But there remains the disengenuous and ultimately obstructionist provision to forbid any construction at RDU. If the legislative deciders say that the University can't spend money on that project, the dominoes will fall to stop construction at CN, and the wedge to keep HWA open permanently will be in place.

http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/airports/resources/
advisory_circulars/index.cfm?template=Document_Listing&
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I read through as much as I could, and the answer to your specific question appears to be 'yes.' There aren't any technical reasons, such as hazards to air navigation that are not addressed properly, which would preclude the opening of this airport today. It also appears that the airport is well above minimum standards for ongoing operational safety (as they would apply to an existing facility). Deficiencies, if any, seem to be related to provisions for handicap access, and current standards for tie-down areas (where planes park). A new airport would have to do a lot to comply with these rules.

Official use policies (put in place by the owner) for this airport preclude jets except under tight conditions, parachuting, training flights, gliders, recreational flights ... there is a long list. While I'm no expert, comparing this list to that of other similar airports (I checked seven) pretty much says that this airport is VERY tightly restricted in uses. The rules don't come out and say so directly, but for all practical purposes, you effectively must be a highly trained pilot and be flying in only a small and very air-worthy type plane, and only during certain hours, to even come here.

I am glad I took the time to look all of this stuff up (and it's taken me the better part of two hours just to read all of it). From the looks of things, it appears that our local airport is an exceptionally well-run "tight ship" type operation.

Here are guidelines, developed by the Washington State Department of Transportation, that use accident-zone statistics and size of airport as basis for guidelines regarding land-use around airports. HWA's runway started at less than 4000', was extended to accommodate jet traffic, may have been changed again since then (perhaps with the threshhold length in these guidelines in mind).  Also a long document, but diagrams and charts toward the end tell the story:

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/5983B7EF-5061-48FF-8829-1359F783CD10/0/AirportsLandUse.pdf

Since 1991, I have served on many committees and attended many meetings that relate to the airport and to the development of Carolina North and the Horace Williams Tract.   From all the the information presented and discussions among the stakeholders, I concluded that the airport would eventually be closed, not because of schoolkids' safety or aviation-related issues, rather because its land is far too valuable to be used as a general-aviation airport.  That's what we're seeing finally, that its use as Carolina North is more valuable than its use as an airport, including the various customers that the airport serves.

Here, to stimulate some more discussion, are some personal opinions of  related smaller issues:

First, the 1990s attempts by neighborhood groups to close the airport were narrow and misguided attempts to save their neighborhoods from a small nuisance.  Since I conducted a small-time political career based on neighborhood protection, why do I feel this way?  Because if the airport were closed, it wouldn't be converted into a nature preserve; it would become a major commercial and/or office site whose impact would far, far exceed the impact of the airport, private jets and all.   After all the HWA has always generated negligible auto traffic.

Second, Chancellor Moeser, though he was looking for any excuse to evict the Chapel Hill Flying Club, was correct to do so.  What the club's leadership did in attempting to cover up a plane crash was, to quote David Brooks, stupidity on stilts, and worse, dangerous to the men and women of the CH Fire Department

Third, while AHEC is the obvious way to sell the concept of a Chapel Hill airport to state-wide interests and legislators, and while AHEC is an important organization for our state, its air services are a minor part.  How much impact on a state whose population is now 9 million could up to six flights per day, each carrying about two health educators have?   In this regard, the AHEC air services sells about an equal number of seats to university administrators and athletics personnel who simply use the service as a convenient airlines for pay.  Flicka, who got her PhD at Duke, once asked how Duke Univ Med Center could be so good without an airport?

Finally, please ignore the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.  They spin the value of HWA, cherry pick facts, and  s--t--r--e--t--c--h  every argument to its breaking point.  Why if HWA is closed, the town's economy will tank and health care in NC will suffer severe consequences.  Come on AOPA, we may live in NC, but we didn't just fall off the turnip truck.  I'm surprised that AOPA didn't describe the absolute necessity for wealthy CEOs to fly in for b-ball games.