June 8, 2026 Editor, The News-Gazette: The Board of Supervisors is still fiddling with securing an airport for Rockbridge County.
Commercial pilots still regard open skies as much safer than Airport Traffic Areas scattered across the landscape, similar to “potholes on an interstate highway,” but just more hazardous. The Airport Traffic Area above any airport supports at least a 5 mile radius (10 nautical miles across) which requires all aircraft to comply with speed and safety rules, crossing altitudes and a dozen other procedural requirements when crossing an Airport Traffic Area.
Meanwhile, any private pilot, using an airport, needs a level of alertness that matches road traffic risks at least equivalent to Atlanta, Georgia’s 6 p.m. rush hour.
Every airport added to the National Airspace System requires a rewriting of the air navigation maps, procedures, updates, notices to airmen, etc, so when a transient aircraft is overflying a dozen little airports between Charlotte and D.C., that’s a dozen potholes in the airborne “interstate” that could make for a very bad day ... for somebody.
And the cost to build, maintain and oversee even the smallest general aviation airport is outrageously expensive. Maybe that’s why Virginia county governments refuse to allow a referendum on airport proposals. There aren’t enough taxpayers that would ever vote to have an airport if voters knew all the facts. DON HENKE Goshen A commercial pilot
