The issue of whether or not to honor Pappy Boyington by naming the Coeur d'Alene Airport after him has a great deal of merit.
As a pilot myself, and having traveled all over the Country into airports named after people, I can attest to one thing. Renaming an airport after a departed hero in no way alters the three letter FAA designation.
It would not confuse pilots. One, we are special people, and do not confuse easily. Two, we have aeronautical charts that show the location, as well as the name. The only confusion regarding location comes from an airport called "Coeur d'Alene" that is located in Hayden.
An example would be the Orange County Airport in California. It was renamed "John Wayne" Airport after his death. The airfield still has the same letter designator that it always did.
Perhaps we should start a petition to have it renamed. Popular support would not go un-noticed by the County commissioners.
Although I admired the "Duke" for his acting, I can't compare a war hero like Boyington to a person that merely played parts in movies. I support the Spokesman-Review in urging the County to rename the Airport.
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7 years ago
2 comments:
YAY! Let's do it!
Herb,
I didn't know you were a pilot.
You blogged about the FAA three-letter designators at airports. Here's a link that explains how the designations are determined.
I've noticed something locally: The FAA designator for Spokane International Airport is GEG, presumably based on the airport's original name, Geiger Field. However, increasingly the spokesflack at the airport and the broadcast news media in Spokane refer to the commercial airport as "SIA". SIA is the official ICAO designator for the airport in Xiguan, China. Additionally, Singapore International Airlines also refers to itself as SIA. Spokane's ICAO designation GEG could be worse -- it could could be GAG! By the way, I've come up with a new term for this kind of information. It's a combination of "drivel" and "trivia" -- drivia!
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