The case for Palmdale Airport, part II

Editorial Focus: The following is the second in a two-part series of opinions rebutting point by point the published comments on Palmdale Airport by former Los Angles Airports Commission Chairman Dan Garcia.

Response: Last time we checked, Palmdale Regional Airport, and the more than quartermillion people living up here are residents of that Los Angeles County the former commissioner wants to protect.

With expansion of service we're all talking about the growth of the job base in the future - not protectionism for an already overcrowded airport.

Antelope Valley people have a right to make a living, too. And some now commute to Los Angeles International to work.

Assertion: "Palmdale - is two miles from the San Andreas Fault."

Response: And LAX is how far from half-a-dozen faults, including the Inglewood Fault? The point is a smokescreen - distinction without a difference.

Assertion: Palmdale "experiences weather conditions that adversely affect thrust efficiency and present a safety issue . . ."

Response: The statement is MISINFORMED. FLAT-OUT WRONG. Such long-discredited drivel is nothing more than specious science fiction created and disseminated to the highly gullible by opponents of the LAX plan to build Palmdale International Airport back in the late '60s.

Opponents wanted officials to believe it would be too expensive or dangerous or impossible for commercial jets to take off from Palmdale because the community is too high and too hot at certain times of year.

FACT: At about 2,500 feet above sea level, Palmdale is significantly lower than many successful commercial airports, including Denver. As to "heat" factors hampering aircraft operations, high temperatures at Palmdale are significantly lower - both in the average and extreme - than at other airports, including Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth and Las Vegas.

FACT: The Antelope Valley, in northern Los Angeles County, has been home for half a century to world-record flights by heavy aircraft, both piston and jet-propelled. Consider that:

Oct. 14, 1969 - The heaviest takeoff in world history occurred when a Lockheed C-5A Galaxy transport lifting off with a gross weight of 798,100 pounds at Edwards Air Force Base.

April 13, 1971 - A Lockheed L-1011 TriStar commercial jetliner, one of many built and flighttested at Palmdale, took off with its heaviest load, 404,000 pounds.

FACT: The military, aircraft manufacturers and airlines routinely use Palmdale Regional Airport for testing, material transport and crew training - at all hours and in all weather. One of the heavier lifts out of Palmdale is that of modified space shuttle orbiters ferried by 747 from Palmdale to Cape Kennedy.

Assertion: ". . . commercial aviation routes coming into Palmdale could interfere with an important military flight corridor."

Response: The speculative argument could be made about virtually any commercial airport in the vicinity of a military base. However, both general aviation and past commercial operations at Gen. William J. Fox Airfield in Lancaster, and ongoing commercial and industrial operations at Palmdale Regional Airport haven't had adverse effects on military flight corridors serving the Air Force Flight Test Center and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB.

Assertion: "In 1979, Caltrans revoked the permit for construction of an airport at Palmdale raising `serious questions regarding the location of any airport 65 miles from the population center it is intended to serve' . . . After much lobbying, the revocation was lifted, but the points were certainly
made."

Response: Every new major airport developed is judged by some official agency or another as being "too far out" to be used or useful: Dulles; Miami; Denver; Mid-Continent in Kansas City and DFW come to mind.

Voices were even raised against development of LAX as too far out from downtown L.A.

While the 65-mile figure does sound excessive, it is important to bear in mind that the mileage is from downtown L.A. to Palmdale. After 5 p.m., downtown L.A. is nobody's center of population.

For millions of people who will have the opportunity of flying Palmdale in the future, the distance from driveway to airline gate is likely to be somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 miles - and at speeds far faster than the snail's crawl over Sepulveda Pass.

Assertion: ". . . either a massive population explosion will need to occur and/or great surface-transportation improvements will have to be made before Palmdale becomes an airport of even secondary importance."

Response: Cities of the Antelope Valley and surrounding unincorporated county territory were among the fastest-growing in the nation until the early '90s, and even through the recession, double-digit population growth continued to rank them among the leaders.

The Antelope Valley is the last developable area in Los Angeles County and it would be shortsighted in the extreme to refuse to examine the growth area in master planning for long-range transportation.

The futures of both the city of Los Angeles and the communities of the Antelope Valley are inexorably linked in air transportation.

Now is not the time for poor historians, but for strong visionaries.