You mean Orange County ???!!!!!!
Now you REALLY hit a nerve with that one. :eek: If those plastic bosomed debt ridden superficial idiots down there had any idea what we have to do to get in and out of there to keep it "quiet" for them, they'd all piss their pants.:LOL:

What a bunch of fools - it's all nice and quiet until one day a Boeing comes crashing through your roof. It's not a question of if, it's when! They have us flying so close to the ragged edge to make the noise restrictions that there is literally NO margin for error. Immediately after takeoff, max climb profile, and just as your airspeed and energy start to bleed off - REDUCE POWER!!!! Now, I bet even those of you who aren't pilots know how ridiculous that sounds. This is the only airport in the WORLD that I've been forced to do this at, and it's done every day, 365 days a year, by every single jet that goes in and out of there. One would be tempted to say that nothing has happened so it must be safe. Actually nothing has happened due to the skill and diligence of those of us who are forced to do such a stupid thing. But hey, it's quieter, and apparently that's all that counts. Almost every airport out there has noise abatement procedures, but nothing even remotely approaching this madness.

By the way, they had the chance to move out to a real airport by closing Orange County and moving it to the abandoned El Toro Marine base, which is a MUCH more suitable airfield. Of course, the local geniuses turned it down. How bad is Orange County? Top it off with this - it remains today, after all my years of flying, the shortest runway I have EVER landed a Boeing on. El Toro is almost twice as long. The madness continues.

Heeehawwww...I wondered if you'd hit that last little addition to my post. Besides flying commercials, I used to fly on various private jets out of there and every company pilot either cussed or prayed taking off. :p

Now, Dick Smith just loved it...he'd pull up fast and then dip the motors and yell "oh sh!t!"

But for we cattle, it was muy goodo. Park across the street (I'm talking the 70s and early 80s) and walk to the counters, and then 50 yards to the gates.

Not to mention McCormicks Landing on the other side of the runways...look out from the basement bar to landing gears and engines while ya downed a half dozen or so flaming Black Russians with some green mussels.

Jamo, The locals over there just don't get it. They have an airshow going on over their heads every day, and they're just clueless. I had one idiot one day (not the airline I'm with now) actually hit the stick shaker coming out of there. Now, you talk about having a seat cushion surgically removed from your ass? I've never taken control of an aircraft that I wasn't flying so quickly in my life.....just about busted my knuckles on the panel shoving the levers to max thrust. :eek:

Yup...no doubt, but JW hisownself had his place in the backbay. You don't want the namesake getting pissed.

You could hear the planes throttle back from the beach or the Balboa Bay Club...you look up out of instinct wondering if somebody's coming in on PCH.

El Toro was so perfectly situated for the move it stunk...but the Irvine Company had it's sites on it and the future Golden Triangle at the 5/405/133.

It is amazing that there's never been a big one down there...you guys had to lug 'em around in a wheelbarrow to be flying out of there.

It ain't fun, my friend. There are many places I'd rather be than SNA.:)

:)

Well it wasn't as bad as some but I always thought that Burbank was to small for the jets. It seemed the landing gear barely cleared the fence and as soon as they touched down they were on the reverse thrusters hard. I have gotten off sore from being pushed into the seat belts. And I never did like Ohare. No matter what my connecting flight was. It would always be at the far end of the terminal from where we finally landed. I must have ran 20 miles in that darn terminal. All that aside I do enjoy flying and always have. Even thought about going to flight school once to get a license for small planes.

Ron :)

Buncha' pansies! Try a TurboProp out of Fayetteville, Arkansas at night! A couple of my brothers and I had to fly out after moving somebody into that area. Good old America West! Stewardess had a calulator out adding weights as we boarded and the 'door' between the cockpit and cabin was a shower curtain. The Ozark Mountains stayed in the forward view a LONG time as the plane struggled to get airborne. Never listened to engine tune so hard in my life! :LOL:

:)

Hey, try flying out of Quincy in a single engine plane when the wind is above a mild breeze. When they flew me up there ton work on a problem it was way up in the mountains. There is one long valley where the small airport is and when they came to get me we foe form at least 4 minutes in the same place as the plane could just barely hold its own against the wind. I felt as if I was in a helicopter. Finally the pilot said we had better fly down the valley until we can get behind a mountain and see if that will let us get out. So after all that extra flying we finally barely managed to get enough altitude to get over the mountains but now the fuel is a problem. Said piolet, we may have to try and find a place to set down before we get back to Redding.
Also another great trip when I had to fly out of Redding. Twin engine something or other. Had to weigh the passengers and baggage to be sure the plane was balanced. It was pouring rain and sounded as if I was in a steel pipe with someone banging non it with a hammer. I sit right behind the pilot and he kept asking the co-pilot if he was sure we were going in the right direction. They had to fly just above the power poles and follow I-5 all the way to Woodland, take a left and follow the highway going into Sacramento until the co-pilot finally saw the road sign pointing to the Sacramento airport. The last time I would ever fly out of Redding Airport.

Ron :eek:

The airport in Huntington, WV is pretty hairy too. Some brilliant developer proposed the idea of putting an airport on the side of a mountain and convinced an architect/engineers to design it.

I read all these posts and think back to when, as a 7 year old, I flew from Johannesburg to Brazzaville in a DC6 - and watched as a prop got feathered along the way.

After watching the prop stop, my gaze shifted to the ground as I was sure that I was viewing where we were going to end up next and it didn't look good.

I wasn't scared at all. I was terrified.

One good thing - it made landing in San Diego and taking off from John Wayne seem like a piece of cake.

Pat,

That must have been a flight to remember. I was actually wishing the one that I had to take to Sacramento that time would have had to land on the freeway as the pilots didn't seem to know any more about flying that plane than I did. I was so weak when I got off, I think some people thought that I was sick. But I was just scared. However at that time I did know how many power poles there were along I-5 from Redding to Woodland. **)

Ron :)