Both Sides Air El Toro Grievances

* Re “Pilot Group Backs El Toro Runway Use,� Nov. 20:

The group known as the Commercial Pilots for Airport Safety seems to have jelled their collective brains by too many hard landings. There are basic inalienable facts that must be considered:

No jet aircraft is authorized to take off with a tail wind over 10 mph. A tail wind has the effect of shortening the runway. This cannot be offset by unloading passengers, cargo or fuel.

No jet aircraft is authorized to land with a tail wind greater than 10 mph. Same reason as above.

The group alludes to Boeing 757s and 767s being used in “domestic� flights. Hasn’t the county been selling us on an international airport? Try flying to the Pacific Rim countries from El Toro. It doesn’t work!

SY WEINER

San Juan Capistrano

* I am somewhat amused at all the different approaches concerning the safe takeoffs from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

When it comes to safety, guesswork goes out the window. We’d better listen to experience, and the Allied Pilots Assn. should have it.

“If� is a pretty big word. In the Nov. 20 article, it is used four times by the pilot group backing the El Toro runway use. Flying accidents only happen “if.�

WILLIAM ALLOWAY

Lake Forest

* Airport opponents have been telling the county for many months--even before approval of the flawed environmental impact report--that the runway configurations in the El Toro reuse plan are unsafe.

Why were those runway configurations proposed? Simple: They affected the least number of homes to minimize opposition to the proposed El Toro international airport.

Now we are told that the county is admitting that Runway 7 is unsafe and that it has quietly been negotiating with the airline pilots’ unions for support of a new parallel north-south runway (“Orientation of El Toro Runway Could Change,� Nov. 18).

Tustin, Villa Park, Anaheim, Orange, Corona del Mar and other communities as well as Irvine may now find themselves squarely under the flight path for most takeoffs.

No one is safe from the county’s future actions once an airport gets a foothold. The airport reuse plan amounts to the long-range destruction of the quality of life in Orange County for the benefit of a few special interests and those now under the flight path of John Wayne who are looking for relief from noise and pollution.

TRISTAN KROGIUS

Monarch Beach

* Somebody needs to tell the truth to those in South County who believe they have won something with the latest court ruling against the El Toro environmental impact report.

All El Toro supporters I know were shocked when the report indicated that the new airport would have as many as 38,000 flights and cause John Wayne to close.

Those conclusions, and other equally off-base ones in the county’s slapdash EIR, were made before anyone is yet certain that commercial jets can fly safely over the hills out of El Toro.

Never mind the EIR. All airport supporters want is for a new airport to be built when it is needed. We don’t want, or expect, to ever close John Wayne or have 38,000 flights out of El Toro.

We do expect South County, which is about to explode with new construction, to share the airport burden--and it will. Most of the folks, both for and against El Toro, will be gone in about 20 years. By then, all the airport studies that can be imagined will have been examined by all the courts in the land. John Wayne will be completely overwhelmed and South County will be packed wall to wall.

The drive to Los Angeles International Airport will be 2 1/2 hours. That is when we will sorely need El Toro, and by then, all of Orange County’s residents will demand it be built. Despite any setbacks along the way, it will be. That’s the truth.

MIKE STEINER

Costa Mesa