NYC Needs Runways, But 'Ghost Airport' Quiet by Chris Hawley - msnbc.com

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Could turning Floyd Bennett Field into a commercial airport help ease congestion?

A National Park Service hangar emblazoned with the name Floyd Bennett Field glows orange at sunset March 11 at New York City's "ghost airport" in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Two airports sit less than five miles from each other, their wide-open runways tracing big Xs along the same stretch of Atlantic shoreline.

At John F. Kennedy International Airport, air traffic controllers herd a procession of airliners in what has become a chronic choke point in the nation's air transport system.

At nearby Floyd Bennett Field, things are more laid back. Recently, the one-man control tower, John Daskalakis, leaned against a pickup truck with a portable radio as an ancient C-54 cargo plane lumbered toward Runway 24 for takeoff. Cyclists and joggers hung out on the taxiway to watch.

As planners lament the lack of space for new runways in a region plagued by air delays, Floyd Bennett's wide, inviting runways sit just across Jamaica Bay within a federally protected park.

The old airfield opens a few times a year for special flights, but most of the time it sits idle — its hangars, runway and control tower intact but off-limits to air traffic.

The perfectly preserved former Navy base was once frequented by Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart. Today, in the cavernous Hangar B, aviation buffs gather to restore old airplanes and swap stories. Some of them wonder whether turning Floyd Bennett into a commercial airport is a realistic, achievable way of easing congestion in New York.

"That would be a dream — that would really be something," said Dante Dimille, a volunteer. "This would make a great civil aviation field again."

Some experts say it's not unthinkable: a new traffic-control system being installed by the FAA could enable planes to fly into Floyd Bennett without conflicting with those headed to JFK. But others say it would be too costly to realign and lengthen its runways. And getting the airport back from the National Park Service, which now controls it, would be near impossible.

"Physically, it would work, with limitations," said Thomas Chastain, an airport planning consultant. "Practically and politically, I don't see them ever using Floyd Bennett Field again."

Too close to JFK?

Still, he said, it's a tantalizing prospect.

New York desperately needs more runway space. JFK and LaGuardia airports in New York, plus Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, together handle about 3,500 flights per day, and passenger demand is projected to increase from 104 million to 150 million by 2030.

In bad weather, the number of flights that air traffic controllers can put on each runway drops. As a result, nearly one-third of flights in New York were delayed or cancelled in 2009, according to a November report released by U.S. Department of Transportation.

The three main New York airports have nine runways between them but haven't built a new one since the early 1970s. Meanwhile, 17 other major airports have added runways just in the last decade, including Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta Hartsfield, Boston Logan and Washington Dulles.

In January, a report commissioned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the region's airports, said any expansion would be difficult. Three of the five options it recommended would require filling in parts of Jamaica Bay to build runways at JFK.

Floyd Bennett has four existing runways, the longest of them 6,000 feet. But it has space for an 8,500-foot runway, longer than any at LaGuardia.

But experts with the Regional Plan Association, which wrote the study for the Port Authority, decided that the distance between such a runway and JFK would cause airspace conflicts.

"We dropped that early on," said Jeffrey Zupan, one of the authors. "It's just too close to Kennedy."

But not everyone believes that's an obstacle.

A new satellite-based air traffic control system, known as NextGen, will soon allow airplanes to make better use of tight airspace, said Paul Freeman, head of flight testing for ITT Corp., which is building the system.

"That's not really a valid excuse anymore," said Freeman, who in his free time runs a website about defunct airports. "We're working on technology that will really free up a lot of the traditional limits of air traffic control. It definitely would allow something like a Floyd Bennett Field to be active again."

Frozen in time

Floyd Bennett wouldn't be the first New York-area airport to close and reopen. Newark airport closed in 1939 after LaGuardia was built, only to reopen in World War II. Flushing Airport in Queens closed in the 1970s, later reopened and then closed for good in 1984.

Floyd Bennett Field was built between 1928 and 1931 and quickly became the preferred launching site for record-setting flights by Hughes, Earhart, Wiley Post and other aviation pioneers. The airport sported unusual innovations, like a turntable for rotating aircraft and tunnels under the tarmac that passengers used to reach their planes.

The Navy took it over in 1941. Most of the airport closed in 1971, though the New York Police Department still uses a corner of it as its helicopter base.

Unlike other airports that have been ripped up to make way for housing developments and shopping malls, Floyd Bennett remains frozen in time.

The hangars are rusting and missing some windows but still standing. The old terminal is being restored and will reopen as a museum later this year. Runway 33 is now a road, but the others are mostly untouched. The Park Service even mows the grass between the runways, part of an effort to accommodate migrating geese.

In 2007, the Park Service opened the old runways for a fly-in of World War II fighter planes, biplanes and a modern Air Force C-130 cargo plane.

In Hangar B, Dimille and other volunteers with the Historical Aircraft Restoration Project show off their collection of old planes to school groups and aviation buffs. A hulking Boeing Stratofreighter, one of only two such airplanes still flying, looms over the other planes like a condor in a nest of sparrows.

The Stratofreighter and a former Navy C-54 cargo plane dubbed "The Spirit of Freedom" are owned by the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation, which keeps them at Floyd Bennett under an agreement with the Park Service.

One March afternoon, the C-54 took off, beginning a summer of visiting airshows around the country. A dozen aviation enthusiasts turned out to take pictures of the takeoff.

Daskalakis listened on his radio as the old cargo plane rumbled to the end of the runway and called for takeoff clearance from controllers at JFK. He had filed a special flight permit with the FAA a few days before.

The huge, piston-powered engines roared. The Spirit of Freedom surged forward, past the joggers and the cyclists and the geese. Then it raised its nose skyward.

For a moment at least, Floyd Bennett Field was an airport again

At Kennedy, a Rebuilt Runway and Sighs of Relief by Michael M. Grynbaum - NYTimes.com

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Bay Runway at Kennedy International could now accommodate the space shuttle. A JetBlue flight was the first to use it Monday. Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

Most travelers going through Kennedy International Airport did not really notice that the biggest runway there had been closed for four months of repairs.

For the stressed-out officials overseeing the $376 million project, that may have been the biggest accomplishment of all.

Runway 13R-31L, which reopened Monday, is a picturesque strip that handles a third of the airport’s air traffic. Before the runway shut down in March, pessimists, and even a few newspapers, predicted a chaos of delays and tarmac traffic jams at one of the nation’s busiest hubs.

But airport officials are happy to report that the number of delays during the construction period stayed more or less the same as last year, when about one in every five flights left late.

And save for one scary day in March, when high winds forced the airfield to operate on a single runway, the repairs went off with few problems and little fuss.

“The public cynicism for the capacity of an agency like the Port Authority to build on time, or on budget, is pretty high,” said Christopher O. Ward, the executive director of the authority, which operates the airport. “Failure would have been unacceptable.”

The repairs are expected to reduce delays at the airport and save millions of dollars in long-term maintenance. The lifespan of the runway, the second longest in the country, is expected to be extended by 40 years.

Its newly widened span can now accommodate the most advanced aircraft in the world (including the space shuttle). And its murky asphalt surface has been replaced by bright white concrete, producing a beaming strip along Jamaica Bay.

Just before noon on Monday, a JetBlue airplane taxied to the repaired runway and took off for Tampa, Fla. It was the first aircraft in four months to take flight from the landing strip, which was finished days ahead of schedule.

To choose which airline would be the first to try out the restored airstrip, airport officials picked a name out of a hat. But that may have been the only unplanned component of an ambitious renovation that was nearly four years in the planning stages before a shovel ever hit the ground.

The goal, at the start, was simple: to restore a heavily used runway that was overdue for a spruce-up. Long known as the Bay Runway, the airstrip was in operation when Kennedy, then called New York International Airport, opened for commercial flights in 1948. But its last overhaul was in 1993.

The airport built two and a half miles of barbed-wire fencing to isolate the construction area, to conform with federal security regulations. It paved a new access road to give machinery a direct path onto the airfield. And a cement plant, capable of producing 4,000 cubic yards of it daily, was built on the premise of saving travel costs and time.

The project was timed to coincide with springtime’s drier air and lighter travel load, but officials had to deal with a major variable: the fickle weather of New York City in March, April and May.

“Every week we hit the milestones was a week of relief,” Mr. Ward said.

A nail-biter took place on March 13, when winds swept through the airfield at upward of 65 miles per hour. About noon, the airport was forced to close all but one of its four runways, and those runways stayed closed for most of the day. Mr. Ward described his team as “pretty darn anxious.”

About 24 percent of departing flights at the airport were delayed in March, up from 16 percent a year earlier, according to data from the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. But in April, only 16 percent of flights were delayed, down from 21 percent a year ago.

Concrete is a more durable substance than asphalt, which saves repair costs in the long run. But it takes much longer to install and is not commonly used for runway rehabilitations.

The airport used a machine that paved 1,000 feet a day, but contractors still found themselves working more weekends than expected.

Airport officials had hoped to install a new design feature on the taxiways that would allow planes to overtake one another in the queue, a method for speeding departures. But the plan was not approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, which worried that pilots might be confused by lack of signs, a F.A.A. spokeswoman said.

About two-thirds of the 14,572-foot-long runway is now back in operation. A final, smaller segment will be repaired in September, which will require the closing of an intersecting runway for two weeks.

But Mr. Ward said the project was over its biggest hump. “And we don’t have to think about it for another 40 years,” he added.

Busiest JFK Runway Reopened by Stephen Geffon - Queens Chronicle

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The Bay Runway at JFK Airport, which has been closed for four months due to renovations, had its grand reopening last week. PHOTO COURTESY PORT AUTHORITY NY/NJ

JFK International Airport’s Bay Runway has been cleared for takeoff after a four-month reconstruction project.

At a press conference on Tuesday at Hangar 12, officials from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Federal Aviation Administration, the airlines and the project announced that Runway 13R-31L, which handles a third of airport traffic is re-opening ahead of schedule and within its $376 million budget.

About two-thirds of the three mile runway is now back in operation. A final, smaller segment is scheduled to be repaired in September, which will require the closing of an intersecting runway for two weeks.
The Bay Runway is scheduled to be fully operational by Nov 15, the FAA said.

Click on image to enlarge

“With the completion of the Bay Runway reconstruction, John F. Kennedy International Airport has stepped boldly into a new era of transportation that will mean jobs, new revenue and greater economic growth for the entire tri-state region,” said Gov. David Paterson.

JFK Airport serves 48 million passengers annually and had roughly 440,000 flights last year.

The runway reconstruction project included milling six inches of existing runway asphalt and overlaying it with 18 inches of concrete. It has a lifespan of up to five times longer than asphalt and will provide an estimated savings of $500 million while reducing the need for ongoing maintenance. The 14,572-foot-long runway has been widened from 150 feet to 200 feet to accommodate new, larger aircraft. New lighting and electrical infrastructure were installed as well as a new electrical feeder system to accommodate for future navigational aids.

According to Jim Steven, program director for Plant Structures and Development at JFK, the runway was last rehabilitated in 1993 using conventional asphalt paving methods. Interim repairs were performed in 2004 due to increased aircraft traffic.

JFK is one of the nation’s most delay-plagued airports. It ranked 28 out of 31 of the nation’s major airports in on-time arrival performance in 2009, according to the Department of Transportation.

These improvements are expected to reduce flight delays by 10,500 hours per year, according to officials.

JFK Has Most Bird Strikes, FAA Reports by Stephen Geffon - Queens Chronicle

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The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating whether Canada geese, pictured here, are to blame for the majority of bird strikes. (photo by Ray G. Foster)

The full extent to which birds collide with airplanes had been unknown to the general public — until last week.

After initial reluctance, the Federal Aviation Administration released a comprehensive report on the dangerous bird problem at the nation's airports, an account that resulted in Kennedy International Airport scoring headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The FAA report, which tracked the period between January 1990 and November 2008, found that, since 1990, Kennedy has led the nation with 1,811 reported bird strikes. By comparison, LaGuardia had 954 avian collisions. The report only captured about 20 percent of all wildlife strikes and included the cost of repairs to the planes from the bird strikes — estimated to be more than $267 million.

And, at the heart of the controversy, one bird species seems to be garnering the nation’s attention: Canada geese.

JFK, the nation’s sixth busiest airport, is located near the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, a 9,000-acre stretch of small islands and marshes that is home to 330 bird species. The Wildlife Refuge is also a veritable breeding ground for gulls and geese which, along with mourning doves, comprise the majority of birds that hit planes, according to the FAA.

While the National Transportation Safety Board has not completed its investigation, authorities believe that a flock of Canada geese were sucked into the two jet engines of US Airways Flight 1549 shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport on January 15. The bird strike caused the plane’s engines to immediately shut down, forcing the pilot to land in the Hudson River.

At a news conference last week, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the federal government should “create a new program that would devote millions of dollars to wildlife mitigation focusing on reducing bird strikes at the New York City airports and airports around the country.” Schumer also announced this week he will introduce new legislation requiring the FAA to make bird strike data mandatory.

Doug Adamo, spokesman for Gateway National Recreation Area’s Jamaica Bay Region, said officials are not currently performing habitat management to enhance bird habitats or nesting sites in the area to attract birds.

But officials at Kennedy seem to be taking matters into their own hands. This year, the airport expects to install the Avian Radar System, manufactured by Accipiter, which tracks birds’ course, speed and altitude within six miles and 3,000 feet of the airport.

City Council Transportation Committee Chairman John Liu (D-Flushing) said that although he does not plan to hold any hearings to look at bird strikes, he will work closely with federal authorities to find strategies to solve the problem and will consider everything from “more sophisticated electronic deterrence” to the “scarecrow” effect.

The scarecrow method is exactly what it sounds like — the use of falcons to scare birds out of a plane’s flight path, an environmentally friendly form of bird control known as a type of falconry.

“It’s something we have to look at, obviously,” Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park), a member of the Transportation Committee, said. Falconry is still a viable alternative option, he said.

The Port Authority currently has a five-year, $3 million contract with Falcon Environmental Services, Inc. to perform falconry at Kennedy Airport.

While Kennedy has been using falcons for decades to frighten gulls from its flight paths, they are not currently used at LaGuardia, Port Authority spokesman Pasquale DiFulco said.

Falconry wouldn’t work at LaGuardia, he said, because it is “effective against gulls, not geese.” Gulls are the primary birds at issue at Kennedy, but not at LaGuardia, where geese pose the main threat, DiFulco said.

However, veteran falconer Andrew Barnes of Falcon Environmental Services disagreed.

“It is the best tool we have available to us,” Barnes said.

Regardless of the method ultimately chosen to combat bird strikes, Queens officials agree: something has to be done to prevent another destructive accident.

“Active bird management and habitat alternation methods must be enhanced to ensure the safety and well being of air passengers,” said Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer (D-Ozone Park).

JFK Leads Country in Bird Strikes: FAA Report by Philip Newman - YourNabe.com

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U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who successfully fought for release of information on bird strikes against the nation’s jetliners, has called for a federal program to reduce “a very serious problem endangering anyone who takes to the skies.”

Schumer said John F. Kennedy International Airport was No. 1 in the nation for bird strikes that caused serious damage to airliners.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood ordered the release of Federal Aviation Administration bird strikes information last week at the behest of Schumer.

The FAA reported that airplane collisions with birds have more than doubled at 13 U.S. airports since 2000.

“In New York, there were 1,811 bird strikes at JFK since 1990,” said Schumer, pointing out that Newark had 948 bird hits and LaGuardia 954.

He said the cost of repairs to the planes in these cases was estimated at more than $267 million.

The senator said the federal government should “create a new program that would devote millions of dollars to wildlife mitigation, focusing on reducing bird strikes at New York City airports and airports across the country.”

Schumer mentioned that JFK “is near wetlands, that area breeding ground for birds such as geese.”

The senator was referring to the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, home to as many as 330 bird species.

Schumer has not said whether he sees a proposed waste treatment plant in College Point near LaGuardia as an obstacle to mitigation of the bird problem. U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside) and other elected officials have expressed concern that trucks and barges carrying sealed containers of garbage would still attract birds.

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“We all remember that day on Jan. 15 when a US Airways flight flown by the heroic Chesley Sullenberger splash-landed in the Hudson River,” Schumer said.

“That death-defying landing was directly caused by birds coming into contact with the plane’s engines. Bird strikes at New York airports and airports across the country have risen unabated by an FAA that repeatedly swept safety issues like this under the rug and are now unacceptably high,” he said.

The FAA report listed the most bird strikes as having occurred at Denver International Airport with 2,090, although the most with damage occurred to planes at JFK.

The report tracked the period between January 1990 and November 2008.

The agency reported that 97 percent of the collisions were with birds, but there were also dogs, rabbits, foxes, prairie dogs, bats, moose, bats and turtles.

The great majority of birds involved were mourning doves, although there were also Canada geese and many other bird species, the report said.

.“This potential safety crisis is proof positive of the hear no evil, see no evil approach the FAA took to aviation safety for the last eight years,” said Schumer, a frequent critic of the FAA.

Not Much Room to Make Kennedy, LaGuardia Runways Safer -- Newsday.com

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For New York City's two airports, there's not much room for improvement when it comes to making runways longer, and therefore safer, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Kennedy Airport is bounded largely on the south and east by Jamaica Bay and its marshlands, on the west by Howard Beach and on the north by the Nassau Expressway and Belt Parkway. LaGuardia Airport is bordered on three sides by the waters of the East River and by Flushing and Bowery bays, and on its south by the Grand Central Parkway.

The hemmed-in airports are on the Department of Transportation's list of 11 airports around the country that are struggling to meet federal requirements that runways be surrounded by safety areas.

The extra space around runways is designed to give planes room to stop in an emergency.

A study by the department's inspector general found that New York City's airports have "inadequate" runways when compared with the ideal safety standard. The study's results were made public last week.

The study was an audit of the FAA's Runway Safety Area program. An RSA is a rectangular area surrounding a runway that is a safety zone for aircraft during landings and takeoffs.

In the past 10 years nationwide, 75 aircraft have careened off runways, causing 12 fatalities and nearly 200 injuries, according to the report.

A 6-year-old boy was killed in December 2006 when a plane left the runway at Midway Airport in Chicago, slammed through a fence and crashed into his family's car in traffic.

In November 2005, Congress mandated that the nation's airports enhance passenger safety with improvements to their runway safety areas by 2015.

Pasquale DiFulco, a spokesman for the Port Authority, which operates both airports, said work to improve runways has been ongoing.

"Our runways are safe," DiFulco said yesterday. "We would not be able to operate our airports had the Federal Aviation Administration not certified these runways."

According to the inspector general's report, there's still work to be done. At Kennedy, runway safety improvements are planned for this year and next during a rehabilitation project, but the airport has two more runways that need improvement, according to the report. No cost estimate was included in the report.

It may take up to seven years to complete the work at Kennedy because of "careful sequencing" so that planes can continue to fly uninterrupted, the report says.

At LaGuardia, work could take eight years and includes extending runway decks over Flushing Bay. The FAA estimates the costs of the improvements at $36.5 million for LaGuardia, the report says. The upgrades are in the design phase.

Some runways at each airport have added safety features that make use of air-filled concrete blocks, which collapse when an airliner's weight is on them at the end of a runway.

The crumbling concrete in these Engineered Material Arresting Systems stops a plane's wheels from rolling, bringing the craft to a rapid stop. The system is described as "flypaper for aircraft," DiFulco said.

Plans call for adding the system to other runways at the two airports, except for those at Kennedy that have what the report called "adequate" land for a safety area.

New Technology May Prevent Bird Strikes - ABC News

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Avian Radar on top of buildings at Sea-Tac Airport's terminal area track the flight of birds to prevent dangerous collisions. (Sea-Tac Airport)

At Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport, an experimental radar system monitors a threat to the nation's aircrafts that goes largely unnoticed: birds.

Birds frequently fly into airplanes, and as it became frighteningly clear last month when such a collision disabled a jet in New York, forcing the pilot to crash-land in the Hudson River, though birds may be small, they can cause serious damage.

While many of the nation's airports defend against flocking birds with crude scare tactics, such as explosives and noise markers, airport wildlife biologist Steve Osmek is testing the nation's first Avian Radar.

The system at Sea-Tac uses a series of small radar units, which have been refined to pick out birds from all the clutter, and determine birds' courses, speed and altitude several miles around the airport.

"We set up alarm zones, we set up alert areas, and so, when you have birds that are flying through, the software alerts us. It can either send me an e-mail [or] it can call my cell phone," Osmek said.

The system, which has been in use at Sea-Tac since 2007, wasn't receiving much attention until the ditching of US Airways Flight 1549 last month. The Airbus A-320 jet was forced to land in New York's Hudson River because of a pair of bird strikes that disabled both of its engines. All of the passengers survived.

To Osmek, who has been cataloguing bird strike data and the damage done to planes for years, the accident did not seem like a fluke, but rather, like a part of a greater trend.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, bird strikes are the second leading cause of aviation deaths and wreak more than $300 million in damages each year in the United States alone.

Inside a hanger at Sea-Tac, Osmek has a freezer full of frozen birds and other evidence of repeated bird strikes over the years.

Among the birds in the collection is a short-eared owl that was struck on April 19, 2008, as well as a red-tailed hawk that had been caught near a runway at Sea-Tac just hours before ABC News spoke with Osmek.

Even a single bird that weighs not even two pounds is capable of causing serious damage to a jet engine.

The Program for Wildlife Management at Sea-Tac has developed the avian radar in conjunction with the University of Illinois to lessen the chances of airplane-bird collisions and protect the safety of passengers and birds alike.

ABC News aviation expert John Nance said this type of technology could have made a difference in the case of US Airways Flight 1549 and shows great promise for the future of aviation.

"If we had had a system like this that was perfected, it could have not only helped [the jet's pilot], it could have prevented this collision," Nance said.

JFK, O'Hare and Dallas airports are all in line to test the Avian Radar system used at Sea-Tac sometime this year. Airports across the nation hope that this radar will be an early warning of a problem pilots don't usually see until it's too late.