Our airports look like prisons

[Chris Kennedy]

Interesting blog post by a pilot about general aviation airport security.

http://airfactsjournal.com/2012/08/our-airports-look-like-prisons/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=our-airports-look-like-prisons

[Scott Youmans]

Fascinating article Chris.  It really is sad that this has happened. Throughout my childhood my family took after dinner or weekend rides in the car with an airport, more often than not, on the route. These trips to the airports are among my earliest and fondest memories.  There were occassions when my father actually drove our car onto the private aircraft ramp on the Airlane side of Sky Harbor. I still remember the Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer tied down there.  Another area on that side of Sky Harbor was home to several WWII fighters parked on dirt with some old hangers around the perimiter. It was more like a crop dusting field than an international airport.

What is sad is that future generations will, for the most part, not have the close contact with aviation that undoubtedly inspired me to go the direction I did both professionally and in my hobbies.  Aviation has become very distant.  Airliners miles away or the occasional airshow with hundreds of thousands of people hurded into fenced off areas.  No more casual tours of military aircraft stopping for fuel or sitting in the cockpit of a Lear Jet while the pilots waited for their pasengers to return.  My first ride in an airplane, a Cessna Skymaster, came about as a result of a conversation with a Cessna salesman at Sawyer Aviation when I was about eleven.  When an airport employee driving a golf cart stopped me and my friends on the ramp, it was to ask what airplane we wanted a ride to.

I understand the need for security but frankly I think some, not all, airport employees take pride in being hard asses as if trying to prove their superiority over the mere enthusiast.  I'm grateful for the kinder people and times that defined my childhood.

[Jay Beckman]

Instead of the key phrase being "Welcome To Our Airport", it's now "Not On My Watch"

[Chris Kennedy]

I agree, Scott. I have fond memories of wandering around airports, looking at the planes and talking to the pilots. My family took a cross-country driving trip years ago and I think we stopped at every little airport we ran across and looked around.

I'm of the opinion that much of the current security obsession is mostly about appearance. Just make it look like it's secure so people will think it is. Putting up miles of fence around an airport might make it look secure, but at most smaller airports that fence isn't even patrolled or monitored, so it might as well not be there at all.

[Chris Janes]

The article is right in so many ways. I'm around TUS on an almost daily basis and have been for the better part of eighteen years. I've learned to fly there, I've taught to people fly there still do on occasion but mostly I'm there for work these days. I've watched GA die at TIA, sure the poor economy has had some impact, but these days it's sort of a hostile environment inside the perimeter fences. There is little or no interaction with individual tenants, if there is it consists of...Where is your ID Badge? TSA has been known to hide in bushes to watch people go in and out of the various vehicle gates. TSA will walk through an FBO to see if they can gain access to the ramp without getting stopped and they will walk the GA ramp trying to look suspicious to see if they will get challenged. If you have an ID badge for TUS and you are on the ramp and have forgotten your ID at home and get stopped by TSA or airport police, they can impose a fine of $11,000 just for not having your ID.... it's happened. Who wants to be in that environment when all you want to do is take a friend or loved up for a one hour flight. I used to take my camera to work everyday cause I have access to a lot of places inside the gates of TUS but I leave it home now, it's just not worth the hassle. Fortunately I can pre flight in a closed hangar pull the plane out and go. Heck there isn't even a good greasy spoon airport restaurant!! Almost forgot this one...the base of the tower no longer sells 100-LL AVGAS.  Sad state of affairs.

[FelipeG]

Putting up miles of fence around an airport might make it look secure, but at most smaller airports that fence isn't even patrolled or monitored, so it might as well not be there at all.

My friend said that they just put a fence around part of Hooks Regl (Houston), yes, part of. There's a fence with signs and everything, but you walk half a mile and there's no more fence.