ALL ABOUT AIRPORTS
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If you’re like most people, the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “airport” is a huge airport like Philadelphia International, O’Hare, or JFK where giant airliners make hundreds – even thousands – of takeoffs and landings every day flying thousands of people to places all over the world. Blue Bell’s Wings Field is not that kind of airport. There are 19,854 airports in the United States. Airports fall into three categories:
Of the 19,854 airports in the USA, only 575 are Public Use Air Carrier Airports that feature scheduled airline service flying paying passengers. They have terminal buildings, long runways, baggage claim areas, and tight security. Surprisingly, most airline traffic flows through just 38 hub cities. Philadelphia International is one of these hub Air Carrier airports; it has more than 500,000 take-offs and landings a year. Wings Field, which has only about 40,000 take-offs and landings a year, is not among the air carrier airports. Wings is one of 4,695 Public Use General Aviation Airports. These fields do not have scheduled airline services and typically have shorter runways and more limited facilities that cater to small aircraft. What does “public use” mean? General aviation airports are a lot like the highways many of us use everyday. Access is not restricted and the runways are open to the public. They are “public use” in that they were built in part using government funds and can be used by anyone so long as they follow the rules. There are a number of rules that pilots using Wings Field have to follow. Most of these rules are enforced by the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs). Other rules are governed through Wings’ operating procedures. Some of the procedures are simply requests. Wings Field is unique from the thousands of general aviation airports across the United States in that it has one of the strictest noise control programs in the country. What most people don’t realize is that nearly three out of four (14,584 of 19,854) are Private Use Airports. Many are grass landing strips used by farmers, small businesses, or homeowners with large properties. Access to these airports is restricted and their runways are not open for public use. Others are Military Airports with mostly military aircraft using the airfield. Willow Grove, McGuire, and Dover are examples of military airfields. 
When many people think about airports, they picture a control tower. But control towers are the exceptions – not the norm – at most airports. In fact, of the 19,854 airports in the USA, only 485 have control towers. Wings is too small and not busy enough to have a control tower. |
   
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WHY DO ALL OF THOSE PLANES FLY OVER MY HOUSE?
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If you step outside, look up into the sky, and watch for a minute or two, you’re likely to see an aircraft flying overhead. If you live in the northeastern United States, you are in the middle of some of the busiest airspace in the world. Most of the aircraft passing over Blue Bell and Plymouth Meeting are traveling to or from Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), the nation’s 9th busiest airport. Only a small proportion flies into Wings Field. Two-thirds of the 500,000 + aircraft operations at PHL this year will pass over Montgomery County. That’s nearly 1,400 flights a day. In addition, a number of noisy military transports, patrol planes, A-10 fighters and troop helicopters fly into nearby Willow Grove Naval Air Station each day. In contrast, Wings Field averages only 128 take-offs and landings a day. Most of the aircraft using the field are small single-engine airplanes, but a typical day brings two small business jets, a few charter and corporate turboprop flights, a half dozen flights by corporate helicopters, and three missions by the PennSTAR medevac helicopter team. |
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TRAFFIC PATTERN AFFECTS WHERE AIRCRAFT FLY
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To understand why airplanes and helicopters fly over some neighborhoods and not over others, we need to talk about an airport’s traffic pattern. Every airport has one. It’s a standard path followed by aircraft when taking off or landing at an airport. Think of it as a standard operating practice, a convention, a “rules of the road” that pilots follow to assure safety. Rather than having aircraft flying around the airport in a haphazard fashion, by using a pattern pilots will know from where to expect other air traffic, and be able to see and avoid them. Aircraft prefer to take-off or land facing into the wind. Wings Field’s single runway 6/24 allows aircraft to take-off or land, depending on the direction of the wind, either to the southwest towards Plymouth Meeting or to the northeast towards Ambler. Traffic patterns are typically rectangular in shape, and include the runway along one long side of the rectangle. Each leg of the pattern has a name: the section extending from the runway after take-off is called the “departure” or “upwind leg”; the long side parallel to the runway but flown in the opposite direction is the “downwind leg”; the next short section leading towards but perpendicular to the runway is the “base leg”; the section from the end of the base leg straight in to the runway is the “final approach leg.” 
The downwind leg for Runway 24 at Wings is generally a corridor between Butler Pike and Sheaff Lane, and from Stenton Avenue to Morris Road. [If Runway 6 is used, the corridor lies between Penllyn Blue Bell Pike and Union Meeting Road, from Skippack to Germantown Pikes.] On downwind pilots continue about a mile past the end of the runway and make a left turn onto the base leg (typically over the horse farm on Butler Pike for Runway 24 or over Germantown Pike for Runway 6). Then, when they see themselves lining up for the runway, they make a left turn for the final approach to the runway (typically over Prophecy Creek Park for Runway 24 or the baseball field on Germantown Pike for Runway 6). Pilots at Wings have been flying this same traffic pattern consistently since the airport opened in 1930. Consistent practices assure safer operations for pilots, their passengers, and people on the ground. If airplanes and helicopters regularly fly over your house as they descend for landing or climb after take-off, congratulations – you bought a house under the traffic pattern at the local airport. Conventional wisdom – and physics – holds that the further you are away from a source of noise, the lower the noise level. To minimize noise for neighbors who live under the traffic pattern, Wings has changed its procedures so that aircraft fly at a higher than normal altitude as they approach the airport for landing. The standard traffic pattern altitude at most airports is 800 to 1000 feet above the ground. At Wings, our traffic pattern altitude is 1200’ above the ground for propeller airplanes (a difference equivalent to a 20 story building) and 1700’ for helicopters and jets (a difference equivalent to a 50 story building). 
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View of final approach to Runway 24
View of final approach to Runway 6
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WHY NOISE IS AN ISSUE
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When Wings Field opened on May 23, 1930, it was surrounded by farms, woods, and open space. Whitpain Township was a small rural farming community with 2,378 residents, a far cry from the nearly 20,000 who live in the township today. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Wings did not suddenly move into a neighborhood of expensive homes. Wings was taking off and landing planes and helicopters for decades before developers – and homebuyers – converted the pastoral countryside around the airport into residential and commercial developments. Wings today is like an island whose shores have been encroached by a flood of real estate development. For the first 50 years of its operation, until 1981, neighbors of this busy rural airport were few and far between. Complaints were almost non-existent. That all changed in the early 1980s when the farmland and open space were gobbled up by homebuilders. Developers and public officials made conscious decisions to build schools, homes, and offices across the street from – and under the flight path of – an airport that had been doing business in the township since 1930. When homebuyers, teachers, and students moved in, it did not take them long to realize that their next door neighbor was an airport. Some of them chose to blame the 50+ year-old airport, not the decision-makers who had built there. From its earliest days, Wings has built its operations around safe, quiet, and neighbor-friendly procedures. It has more than 75 years of experience training aviators – student pilots, aircraft owners based at Wings, and visiting pilots – to be considerate of the impact of their flying on the neighbors who live near the field. At Wings we’ve found that education is a powerful tool for helping pilots to operate in a neighbor-friendly way. Every pilot gets a copy of the aerial photograph below that detail our traffic pattern and the noise sensitive areas that surround the airport. 
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AIRPORTS ARE ECONOMIC MAGNETS
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An airport is a vital part of the local economy. In many communities — Blue Bell and Plymouth Meeting are great examples — the area around the airport is the location of an industrial park or business center, chosen by many businesses because of the proximity to the airport. Within a ten mile radius of Wings Field are over 22,000 businesses employing more than 400,000 workers. Included are thirteen of Montgomery County Pennsylvania’s largest employers, names like Merck, Unisys, Aetna, Wyeth, McNeil Consumer Products (a division of Johnson & Johnson), GlaxoSmithKline, IMS Health, Prudential, Hartford, Lockheed Martin, Genuardi’s, Philadelphia Newspapers, and SPS Technologies. Within two miles are 40 office complexes and a major regional shopping mall. Minutes away are major highways like the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Blue Route (I476), Northeast Extension, US202, and the Schuylkill Expressway. Many consider Wings to be the most convenient airport for businesses in southeastern Pennsylvania. We’ll never claim that any of these world-renowned firms came to our part of Philadelphia because of Wings Field, but we have to think that the airport is at least a secondary factor. Let’s face it, when airplanes, gliders, and balloons first took to the air from Wings in 1930, most of these companies did not even exist, let alone have roots in the area. General aviation airports like Wings play a vital role in the health of the nation's economy, generating more than $102 billion of the U.S. GDP and employing 1.3 million in high-skill, high-wage jobs. But the economic benefits of a general aviation airport go far beyond direct jobs and salaries. Wings Field, like all general aviation airports, creates jobs and income; saves lives; helps enforce the laws of the land; is a terminal destination for passengers; and lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals, food, clothing, and other goods. Many consider Wings to be one of the area’s principal community resources because what the airport does best is serve people who don't fly. A study conducted recently for the Commonwealth of Virginia, but applicable to other states, found that:
Nationally, every $1 spent on airport improvement projects generates $6.70 in off-airport economic gains for the surrounding community. Pennsylvania’s 147 public-use airports created more than 288,700 jobs for people who earned $5.6 billion in payroll. In terms of economic impact, these airports generated $12.6 billion in economic activity for the Commonwealth. Locally, the direct and indirect impact of Wings Field on the economies of the Blue Bell, Plymouth Meeting, and Ambler areas is estimated at 121 jobs, $4.0 million in total payroll, and $6.7 million in total output. And these studies do not begin to address the social contribution to our region of services such as the PennSTAR medevac rescue helicopters that operate out of Wings and which have saved the lives of thousands of Montgomery County residents; the Pennsylvania State Police helicopters that periodically use the field to provide airborne law enforcement throughout this region; and two of the most active air taxi/air charter services in the region. Air travel buys Americans the nonnegotiable item we all need more of – time. And airports like Wings are the focal point for accessing worldwide air travel. Coupled with the tremendous social and economic benefits it provides, an airport is a valuable local resource and a vital gateway to the national transportation system. |
 
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WINGS IS REGULATED BY MANY GOVERNMENT ENTITIES
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Operations at Wings Field are licensed and regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Aviation (BOA). The BOA monitors the airport’s operations, services, practices, and procedures; conducts annual inspections; and, if it meets the Bureau’s requirements, Wings is awarded a renewal of its license. Since its opening as an airport in 1930, Wings has always passed its annual review and had its license renewed. Because Wings is a public use airport and a designated reliever airport for general aviation operations into Philadelphia International Airport, it is part of the federal government’s national airspace system. This puts Wings under the auspices of the FAA which has additional strict safety and operational guidelines. Any time an airport seeks to improve its infrastructure or add new facilities and capabilities, it must negotiate its way through a bewildering array of review and compliance processes. Complex and thorough environmental, community compatibility, health and welfare, and other reviews are mandated by regulatory agencies. Governmental units such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Army Corps of Engineers, Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Montgomery County Planning Commission, and others must sign off on their reviews. Public input is required. Locally, Whitpain Township typically requires land development plans, zoning reviews, and compliance with federal, state, and county mandates before it will approve a project and issue a building permit. Environmental Assessments Passed by WingsInfrastructure improvement programs – such as the runway extension project completed in 2001 – required Wings to pass 19 different assessments by a number of federal, state, county, and local governmental review agencies. These assessments reviewed compliance with regulations and required a finding of no significant impact on:
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