|
When Washington Dulles International
Airport announced it had acquired an additional
830 acres this year for a total land area of 11,830
acres, we began to wonder how the Old Dominion’s
other airfields compare to this behemoth. Technically,
of course, we can’t really claim Dulles and
its sister, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport,
as completely our own. Both are operated by the
Metropolitan Airports Authority, an interstate
agency. Our neighbors across the Potomac are represented
on the Authority’s board.
It’s true that the two Washington area airports
dominate air travel in the state. Dulles, which straddles
Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, served almost 23 million
passengers in 2004. Ronald Reagan National in Arlington,
which sits on only 860 acres, served 15.9 million
travelers. But, there are actually seven other commercial
airports in the Commonwealth and 59 general aviation
airports, reports Virginia’s Department of
Aviation in its Virginia Airport System Economic
Impact Study – 2004 Final Technical Report.
Virginia Department of Aviation.
The development of Virginia’s airports mirrors
the history of airfields nationwide. Often a grassy
area at the edge of a town became a landing strip,
which was later paved. Sheds on the property were
redesigned as hangars and terminals. The requirements
for an airfield are that it is as level as possible,
the ground is firm and drains well, and that approaches
to runways are free of obstacles such as trees, hills
and buildings. The site should also be as free as
possible from air pollution or weather that affects
visibility.
The first airports in the nation were called landing
fields and often located in open, grass-covered areas
that allowed pilots to take off into the wind, which
helped lift a plane. While it is impossible to document
a “first airport,” there are recorded
airports as early as 1909 in the U.S. In the Blacksburg
area, old-timers claim a flying field was set up
prior to 1913 in a farmer’s pasture a mile
south of the city. Sixteen years later engineers
from the Virginia Highway Department – the
experts in paving – began to develop a new
site near the campus of Virginia Tech. As planes
got heavier in the 1930s, they required paved surfaces
and longer runways. The Virginia Tech Airport, a
general aviation airfield now called Virginia Tech
Montgomery Executive Airport, opened in 1931.
The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday for airport development.
In the late 1920s, after Lindbergh’s non-stop
New York to Paris flight, local municipalities scurried
to create airports as a kind of “boosterism,” writes
Peter Bakewell in America’s Airports: Airfield
Development, 1918 – 1947. Aviation was
the wave of the future, even though it hadn’t
yet turned a profit.
By the mid-1930s, with the unveiling new aircraft
such as the Douglas DC-3, the possibility of making
a profit on passenger service seemed attainable.
Depression- era initiatives, such as the Works Progress
Administration, helped to maintain and upgrade airports.
But the greatest influx of federal funds came during
World War II when a number of airports in the South
and on the two coasts were taken over by the military;
after the war, many returned to civilian use.
The Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport
is one facility that had such origins in World War
II. It was once the airport facility for the U.S.
Army’s Camp Patrick Henry; its three-letter
airport code is still PHF for Patrick Henry Field.
Almost 1.5 million soldiers passed through the camp
on their way to the Newport News waterfront to board
troop ships crossing the Atlantic. After the war,
commercial flights began with Piedmont (USAir’s
predecessor) and Capitol Airlines in 1949. By 2004,
its four commercial airlines handled more than 900,000
passengers.
Speaking of airport identifier codes, the tags originally
evolved from two-letter codes that the National Weather
Service used to record data from various cities.
But, as airline service exploded in the 1930s, there
was a need to identify cities that did not have weather
codes. An anonymous bureaucrat devised the three-letter
system, which allows for 17,576 combinations. Since
even today we have only 16,000 airports in the U.S.,
we haven’t yet run out of monikers. When the
new airport identifier tags were adopted, cities
who already used the two-letter weather codes just
added an X. Thus the Los Angeles tag became LAX.
"Airport
ABCs: An Explanation of Airport Identifier Codes".
Next to Dulles and Ronald Reagan National, the Norfolk
International Airport is the busiest in the state.
Last year, 3.7 million passengers passed through
its doors. They could fly non-stop as far north as
Boston, as far south as Ft. Lauderdale, and as far
west as Las Vegas. Richmond was second with 2.5 million
fliers. From Richmond, travelers can fly non-stop
to such destinations as Boston, Miami and Dallas/Ft.
Worth. While none of Virginia’s airports make
the top 30 among the world’s busiest airports – Atlanta’s
is number one with 83 million passengers in 2004
-- the state’s Department of Aviation assures
us that our residents are not deprived. Ninety-seven
percent of them are within driving distance of either
a commercial or general aviation airport.
Here’s a puzzler for you. Five of the Commonwealth’s
commercial airports are mentioned above. Can you
name the other four?
(Click
here for the answer.)
April 25, 2005
Nice & Curious
|
