It isn’t often that a new airport opens.
Chennault Airfield (25TX) in Conroe, Texas, has announced completion of phase one construction, which “includes the completion of a 3,100-foot by 70-foot lighted runway, basic airport infrastructure, and the flight school main hangar.”
When I read the story and looked at the rending of the built-out airport, I couldn’t help but notice the housing development just west of the airport.
While the land was once a crop duster strip in the 1970s, it has been abandoned for several decades.
Don’t get me wrong, I love airports. We need more of them.
But Google Maps shows a ring of development surrounding the airport, including a relatively new housing development to the west and to the north, under the departure/arrival paths.
I hope the prevailing runway will be 17 so takeoffs will be performed over wooded, undeveloped (so far) land. If the airport will be standard left hand traffic, aircraft should be west of the houses that are east of the airport.
The flight school is Chennault Aviation Academy and is promoting a Career Pilot Program on its website. This will be busy (noisy?) airport.
I hope the airport owners and the municipality that approved the development are ready for the noise complaints that are likely to follow.
Then again, maybe it’ll be different this time, because the airport wasn’t there first.
