ORIGINAL: Steve Collins

Closing the airport to full scale traffic is not an option that Lewis can even consider. The FAA will not, under any circumstance, consider any proposal to close an airport to full scale traffic for any reason or for any length of time, no matter how short.

I have been to this event every year and the full scale traffic hasn't been a real issue. Lewis has folks with Unicom radios that communicate with the full scale pilots to allow the jet pilots to clear the airspace in an orderly fashion. The coordination has worked very well in my opinion.

Lewis does his very best to make sure everyone knows when there is full scale traffic inbound or about to depart. Sure, there will still be some instances where the announcement might be made right after lighting off the engine (I don't like a wasted engine cycle any more than anyone else) but I can assure you Lewis will do everything he can to minimize that happening. In my view it's a small price to pay for the luxury of the use of such a nice airport.