Georgetown Airport's Future?

The Wall Street Journal has an article today about increasing the capacity of a small local airport that should serve as a future guide for the Georgetown airport if the City continues on the current path.Wall Street Journal

A retired airline pilot in Gainsville, GA decided that he could help the airport grow and that would keep him engaged in his retirement years and would ostensibly help the community, although nothing is mentioned about whether or not the airport is surrounded by homes, churches and schools.

Here is the money quote:

"For his project, Mr. Stradley persuaded the city and county to split the $25,000 cost of a study to evaluate the local airport’s capacity. During World War II, the airport had been designated as a small, 5,000-foot runway and given a limit of 40,000 pounds arbitrarily. The study determined the airport could handle four times that weight, and once the results were approved by the Georgia Transportation Department and published by the Federal Aviation Administration, the airport saw a noticeable increase in larger business aircraft.

“Operators that before were precluded from using our airport are now able to come into Gainesville…leading to a more vibrant business-friendly airport,” says airport manager Terry Palmer."

The 5,000 foot runway and 40,000 pound weight limit are exactly the limiting parameters at Georgetown's airport. It is easy to envision the growth in aircraft size and frequency of operations at Georgetown in the same manner that has occurred in Gainsville, GA. Georgetown's plans call for a doubling of runway weight capability, increased fueling capacity and improved navigational aids, exactly the kinds of improvements implemented at Gainsville, GA.

The City is currently on a disinformation campaign to convince the citizens that all of these improvements are not designed to increase the airport capacity, but, as the Gainsville experience shows, these improvements will cause larger airplanes to use the airport with more frequency.

The City staff and Council need to be honest with the citizens about the real objectives of the proposed and ongoing improvements. As the Council has said before, they want the airport to be profitable to the City and the only way to do that is to increase the number of aircraft that use the airport. The ongoing and proposed improvements are designed to exactly do that!