Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

airfields-freeman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 60 posts

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#21

Post by bombcar »

crnakfls wrote: post #11

My grandfather ran one of these airports: https://airfields-freeman.com/CA/Airfields_CA_SanBernardino_... The stories he would tell of that place. Drug runners landing in the night and him chasing them off with a shotgun. People constantly coming around to try and steal things. The people that would fly in to say hello. He had a real community out there. There were some sad circumstances around the end of his life th…

I landed at that airport, it must have been soon after your grandfather passed - it wasn't NOTAM'd as closed, but the phone number had a recording that the owner had passed and it was closed - I relocated to the larger 29 Palms airport, farther from my destination. My condolences on your loss.

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#22

Post by bombcar »

ryandrake wrote: post #18
crnakfls wrote: post #11

My grandfather ran one of these airports: https://airfields-freeman.com/CA/Airfields_CA_SanBernardino_... The stories he would tell of that place. Drug runners landing in the night and him chasing them off with a shotgun. People constantly coming around to try and steal things. The people that would fly in to say hello. He had a real community out there. There were some sad circumstances around the end of his life th…

It's too bad, because once these small GA airports go away, they are never coming back. Too expensive to rehab, and nobody is building new ones anymore. So ideally they should be preserved, but nobody wants to do it. The tiny GA airfield in my home town went up for sale some time back, and the price they were asking was less than what a medium-sized Bay Area home cost. I was so tempted to find a way to make it work (…

Small GA airports out in the middle of nowhere can come into being, but it's rare, and the whole GA field is aging out and disappearing (both the pilots, planes, and people).

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#23

Post by wahern »

ultrarunner wrote: post #7

It’s a poignant phenomenon that so many airfields used to exist. People now complain endlessly to get long-established fields shut down *, but red tape keeps any new ones from opening. * It is important to note that usually, something like 98% of noise complaints come from 1-2 individuals, even in areas with thousands of residents.

> It is important to note that usually, something like 98% of noise complaints come from 1-2 individuals, even in areas with thousands of residents.

Research paper for anyone interested: https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/airport-nois...

And when there's any talk about airport capacity expansion, newspapers and anti-development organizations trot out statistics about thousands of complaints per year from residents, and then the conversation shifts from expansion to reduction. sigh

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#24

Post by bombcar »

user_7832 wrote: post #8

I love the concept and upvoted but I really wish there was a [USA] tag. I'm on the other side of the world and I clicked, wondering if there are any airfields near where I live. I am still wondering. (Side note to those who might know: beyond Juhu Aerodrome, does anyone know of any other such small airfields nearby?

A local library may have or know how to get access to your areas "sectional charts" - perhaps even historic ones, which show all these things.

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#25

Post by dhosek »

I both love and hate the 90s web design of the page. Looking through my local area (Chicago near-west suburbs), it appears to be missing two airfields that used to be nearby: Cicero Field (which is mentioned but not listed) and another one that used to be in Forest Park (which is not even mentioned).

I didn’t know about the field that used to be in La Grange, whose location is now a gravel pit (which, combined with another one on the other side of Joliet Road is responsible for the closure of a stretch of historic Route 66 although the gravel pit operators insist that despite quarrying to within a dozen feet of the roadway on either side, they aren’t responsible for the subsistence of the road.

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#26

Post by colechristensen »

ryandrake wrote: post #18
crnakfls wrote: post #11

My grandfather ran one of these airports: https://airfields-freeman.com/CA/Airfields_CA_SanBernardino_... The stories he would tell of that place. Drug runners landing in the night and him chasing them off with a shotgun. People constantly coming around to try and steal things. The people that would fly in to say hello. He had a real community out there. There were some sad circumstances around the end of his life th…

It's too bad, because once these small GA airports go away, they are never coming back. Too expensive to rehab, and nobody is building new ones anymore. So ideally they should be preserved, but nobody wants to do it. The tiny GA airfield in my home town went up for sale some time back, and the price they were asking was less than what a medium-sized Bay Area home cost. I was so tempted to find a way to make it work (…

I wonder what the future will be like given that "flying cars" are now more or less a reality.

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#27

Post by jagged-chisel »

colechristensen wrote: post #26
ryandrake wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too bad, because once these small GA airports go away, they are never coming back. Too expensive to rehab, and nobody is building new ones anymore. So ideally they should be preserved, but nobody wants to do it. The tiny GA airfield in my home town went up for sale some time back, and the price they were asking was less than what a medium-sized Bay Area home cost. I was so tempted to find a way to make it work (…

I wonder what the future will be like given that "flying cars" are now more or less a reality.

they exist. but fuel, inflation ...

The future looks much like it does now.

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#28

Post by mauvehaus »

What are the criteria for inclusion on this site? In no particular order I have a couple that could be added:

Plymouth Municipal in Plymouth, NH. GA grass strip, I believe. Follow the signs towards Quincy Bog from 93. If you go through a covered bridge shortly after turning off 25, you're on the right road.

Blueberry Hill in Western MA. Private grass strip. Former(?) home of The Cookie Lady. PYO Blueberries. About 10 miles north of Upper Goose Pond cabin on the Appalachian Trail. Northbound hikers will appreciate it greatly if southbound hikers bring blueberries for the pancakes the next morning.

Post Mills, VT. Grass strip, has very active soaring and ballooning communities. Home to the Vermontasaurus and a great deal of other folk art-type stuff. Worth a trip if you're in our particular middle of nowhere already. No, I did not know Brian Boland. He died before we moved to the area.

Tonopah, NV is on there. I spent a night with my tent pitched in their hangar (with permission) in 2006 bike touring out west. That one remains active.

Post Mills is most definitely active and they release sailplane tows over our house regularly. Often you can find someone setting up for a baloon flight on a nice morning. I've driven by Plymouth Municipal a bunch going to and from Rumney for climbing when I lived in Boston, and there were a bunch of planes last time I did that. Haven't been by Blueberry Hill in a while, but sure was happy to gorge myself on blueberries on my way to Katahdin in 2010!

Re: Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields

#29

Post by mauvehaus »

imoverclocked wrote: post #19
embedding-shape wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I kind of get that. If I bought land/house away from stuff, and suddenly they want to place an airfield right next to me, I'd fight it as well. Moving to where an airfield already is and then try to close it is mischievous behaviour though, and obviously not very kind. > 98% of noise complaints come from 1-2 individuals, even in areas with thousands of residents. I think you can replace "noise" with "X" and it…

Most/all airfields predate the purchase of a home. The noise complaints come from people who came long after the airfield was established.

This is true, but the problem has become more concentrated with the advent of RNAV. Depending on wind direction and which runway Logan was operating, I had flights departing directly over my place in both JP and later Somerville every 60-90 seconds. The precision with which they do this is incredible, and also kind of annoying.

Spreading out the traffic would do wonders. Having witnessed this firsthand, it's not super surprising that complaints are concentrated when the noise is too.

Post reply on HN