Actor Bruce Willis was informed through a consultant two months ago that the Federal Aviation Administration would not finalize a decision on his plan for a private airport east of Fairfield until a separate study on possible sites for a replacement field for Friedman Memorial Airport is completed.
The actor—who owns property in Hailey—has proposed to build a single, 8,500-foot, jet-friendly runway for a privately operated field, presumably mainly for vacationers using his Soldier Mountain ski resort.
A letter from the FAA to Willis' engineering consultant, Larry Bauman of Philadelphia-headquartered DMJM Aviation/AECOM, was released to the Mountain Express last week.
In it, Airports Division Manager Donna Taylor of the FAA's Northwest Region wrote that the proposed Willis airport's operational air space "would have an impact on VFR (Visual Flight Rules) operations in the air space affecting one of these alternative sites" being studied as Friedman's replacement—site 12 along U.S. Highway 20 just east of the Camas-Blaine county line.
An environmental impact study of site 12, as well as of several others, is being conducted by FAA contractor Landrum & Brown before the agency decides which is most suitable for a Friedman replacement.
"Until that [EIS] study process is complete," the letter to Bauman reads, "no resolution [on the Willis proposal] can be reached."
Taylor wrote that regulations allow the FAA to withhold a final decision until 90 days after a record of decision is reached on approving a Friedman replacement site. She said that would be after January 2012.
When contacted by the Mountain Express, Bauman said he had no comment on the FAA decision other than it would be accepted.
In a separate e-mail to the Mountain Express, FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said a study of the Willis airport air space had been "conducted," suggesting that the study begun in June 2009 has developed technical data about the air space around Willis' property.
Over the past several months, the FAA has responded to Mountain Express inquiries about the study by saying no information was available for release. The letter to Bauman is dated Dec. 17.
Generally, air space is concerned with whether aircraft using one airport conflict with aircraft using another nearby field, especially aircraft flying under visual flight rules mingling with air-carrier traffic following instrument approach-and-departure corridors extending for miles from the runway.
The proposed new airport to replace Friedman would have at least one 8,500-foot runway with state-of-the-art instrument landing systems on a site some 10 times as large as the present 211-acre field in Hailey.
