[BBMW]

As I've proven previously by NY experience, the safety issue is a red herring. We've had a number of incidents, none of which has resulted in any airport being relocated.

As far as capacity McCarren seems to have plenty for the foreseeable future. Even if it hits its limit, they can build a relatively small airport at Ivanpah to pick up the slack. So that issue is a red herring.

The main issue, as always is economics. Is the land the McCarran takes up worth enough to make moving it economically viable? McCarren is 2800 acres. A relatively small part of that is strip fronted. By my measurement, about 184 acres. That land is, by the best current estimates I can find, is $4 million / acre. For the rest, I'd guess about $400,000/acre. Doing the math, this comes out to, just under $1.8 billion.

Now there's a lot of strip fronting land near the airport, which removing the airport would open up for casino development. But most of that value would go to the private owners. Clark County would get increased property tax revenue, and, if built as casino resorts, other tax revenue streams. What's the present value of that? I'm going to take a wild ass guess at $2 billion over 30 years.

So the economic value harvested by moving McCarren is around $4 billion. Let's say I'm off by 50%. So we can use $6 billion as a comparison number.

The cost of the smaller relief airport at Ivanpah was estimated to be $7 billion. This was a two runway, cargo-centric facility, with some passenger capacity. To build an airport to fully replace McCarren (4-6 runways, with well over 100 gates), complete with some sort of high speed rail system to bring passengers to the resort area, the cost estimate would have to start at $12-15 billion and likely be much higher (as much as $20 billion.) So from an economic standpoint, moving the main airport to Ivanpah makes no sense.

So there you have it. There's no real justification for moving McCarren.

QED

[Bruff]

Originally Posted by BBMW

As I've proven previously by NY experience, the safety issue is a red herring. We've had a number of incidents, none of which has resulted in any airport being relocated.

As far as capacity McCarren seems to have plenty for the foreseeable future. Even if it hits its limit, they can build a relatively small airport at Ivanpah to pick up the slack. So that issue is a red herring.

The main issue, as always is economics. Is the land the McCarran takes up worth enough to make moving it economically viable? McCarren is 2800 acres. A relatively small part of that is strip fronted. By my measurement, about 184 acres. That land is, by the best current estimates I can find, is $4 million / acre. For the rest, I'd guess about $400,000/acre. Doing the math, this comes out to, just under $1.8 billion.

Now there's a lot of strip fronting land near the airport, which removing the airport would open up for casino development. But most of that value would go to the private owners. Clark County would get increased property tax revenue, and, if built as casino resorts, other tax revenue streams. What's the present value of that? I'm going to take a wild ass guess at $2 billion over 30 years.

So the economic value harvested by moving McCarren is around $4 billion. Let's say I'm off by 50%. So we can use $6 billion as a comparison number.

The cost of the smaller relief airport at Ivanpah was estimated to be $7 billion. This was a two runway, cargo-centric facility, with some passenger capacity. To build an airport to fully replace McCarren (4-6 runways, with well over 100 gates), complete with some sort of high speed rail system to bring passengers to the resort area, the cost estimate would have to start at $12-15 billion and likely be much higher (as much as $20 billion.) So from an economic standpoint, moving the main airport to Ivanpah makes no sense.

So there you have it. There's no real justification for moving McCarren.

QED

Safety a red herring
The safety issue is challenged 1,500 times a day by molotov cocktails with wings. One of these days fate will bite us in the ass.

Economics (Value of the land)
Your guess of $400K/acre is way off. UNLV just paid $50 Million for 42-acres at the threshold of 01 for its planned football stadium. Even with the stench, noise and Bang! issues, that's $1.2 Million an acre.

Removing McCarran would open up that land for all kinds of development - commercial, residential, parkland, you name it. It would also increase property value substantially. By way of example, what do you think the value of Wayne Newton's Casa-Whatever along E Sunset https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wa...1d1d71a6e6bbb1
would increase to if the noise scaring his horses were removed?

As for the economics not making sense, go back and read my (several) replies. Airports make money. Airports in close prox to people are dangerous. Airports that can be re-developed should be redeveloped.
An airport with land, access and greed is good.

[observer53]

Originally Posted by jfkIII

This thread sure has legs...never would have guessed it would make it to 15 pages!

For some people, it's not that long. Depends on your forum settings. But in any event, any thread will keep going as long as the same pro and con arguments are repeated over and over.

[Bruff]

Betteridge’s law states “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better...w_of_headlines

Even so, what if I rephrased my question: "If there were a way to re-site McCarran so that it did not pollute the community, did not generate noise over the community, removed the risk of crashing into the community, would generate billions in new revenue, create tens of thousands of jobs, and still be as accessible to the community, would you endorse it?

[BBMW]

^
McCarren is totally landlocked, and has been for a decade or two. But it still has some of it's own land available for terminal development. If they had to build more runway capacity, that would be a bit painful (eminent domain), but it could be done.

And there may have been issues pushing the development of DIA that had nothing to do with airport capacity.

[ev780]

Originally Posted by BBMW

^
McCarren is totally landlocked, and has been for a decade or two. But it still has some of it's own land available for terminal development. If they had to build more runway capacity, that would be a bit painful (eminent domain), but it could be done.

And there may have been issues pushing the development of DIA that had nothing to do with airport capacity.

Don't disagree.

[Bruff]

Originally Posted by ev780

I take great issue with this paragraph! Sully and Skiles probably save countless lives by executing a textbook water landing after multiple bird strikes disabled their aircraft. And by textbook I mean no one dead and only relatively minor or moderate injuries. It was a good landing, they walked away. Unfortunately, not a great landing which would have allowed them to reuse the aircraft.

Sully and Skyles aka Dumm and Dummer, proved what humans can do to a perfectly flyable aircraft, in this case, because both were gawking the "Beautiful view of the river today" (transcript: Dumm, seconds before the geese took out both engines). Dumm then seized control from Dummer, and instead of returning to LGA - proven do-able by the NTSB and every pilot that sim'd the flight - he froze. Because he froze, he did more dumm stuff (between them and ATC, I counted 28 in total) finally ending up in a freezing filthy river. Fortunately for him, his luck continued with NYC Ferry Service rescuing his ass. Textbook only in the sense of what not to do. The next book out of this now-aviation expert: "Do As I Say, Not As I Did".

[observer53]

Originally Posted by Bruff

Sully and Skyles aka Dumm and Dummer, proved what humans can do to a perfectly flyable aircraft, in this case, because both were gawking the "Beautiful view of the river today" (transcript: Dumm, seconds before the geese took out both engines). Dumm then seized control from Dummer, and instead of returning to LGA - proven do-able by the NTSB and every pilot that sim'd the flight - he froze. Because he froze, he did more dumm stuff (between them and ATC, I counted 28 in total) finally ending up in a freezing filthy river. Fortunately for him, his luck continued with NYC Ferry Service rescuing his ass. Textbook only in the sense of what not to do. The next book out of this now-aviation expert: "Do As I Say, Not As I Did".

Not to take this thread too far afield on this topic, but I found this to be interesting reading. Sullenberger Made the Right Move, Landing in the Hudson | WIRED

[Bruff]

Originally Posted by observer53

Not to take this thread too far afield on this topic, but I found this to be interesting reading. Sullenberger Made the Right Move, Landing in the Hudson | WIRED

I don't want to take it off-thread either, except to point out that "... tucked inside thousands of pages of testimony and exhibits is proof that the celebrated pilot could have made it back to La Guardia Airport. Pilots who used simulators to recreate the accident—including suddenly losing both engines after sucking in birds at 2,500 feet—repeatedly managed to safely land their virtual airliners at La Guardia." 'Miracle on the Hudson' Gets Closer Study, Finds Capt. Sully Sullenberger Could Have Landed at LaGuardia Airport - WSJ.

I'm glad that, thus far, there's only been one pilot dumm enough to choose "the safe option".

[Trash Can]

Originally Posted by Bruff

I don't want to take it off-thread either, except to point out that "... tucked inside thousands of pages of testimony and exhibits are hints that, in hindsight, the celebrated pilot could have made it back to La Guardia Airport. Pilots who used simulators to recreate the accident—including suddenly losing both engines after sucking in birds at 2,500 feet—repeatedly managed to safely land their virtual airliners at La Guardia." 'Miracle on the Hudson' Gets Closer Study, Finds Capt. Sully Sullenberger Could Have Landed at LaGuardia Airport - WSJ.

I'm glad that, thus far, there's only been one pilot dumm enough to choose "the safe option".

So you're telling us that you would have handled things differently? Give me a break.

Read all the reports you want. It doesn't matter because you weren't there. Stress does funny things to people. Some handle it, some don't. You have no idea how you would've reacted or what you would have done because you weren't there. To say otherwise is just bull$h1t and wishful thinking. Typical Monday morning quarterback drivel from a wannabe.

Further, in your post above, you quoted " ......, in hindsight, the celebrated pilot....." What does that mean to you? All of those pilots in the sim knew it was coming and had a chance to experiment to see what would and what wouldn't work. Sully and Skiles weren't afforded that luxury. It's so easy to sit back from the comfort of your basement to criticize this crew and their actions. You have the benefit of hindsight. They didn't. Big difference. To ignore that fact shows your ignorance and/or arrogance.

You may have a commercial ticket, but this post and your previous one only proves that you know enough to be dangerous. Be careful before you get yourself killed. I'm not joking.

I'm done with this thread.