HAILEY, Idaho — The airport in this mountain town is so small that when terrorism alerts restrict cars to 300 feet from the terminal, the entire parking lot has to be closed.
Friedman Memorial Airpairort is a busy gateway to the Sun Valley ski resort that is a magnet for the rich and famous, but only small commercial and private aircraft are allowed to land. Heavier jets, such as Boeing 737s, are banned because they would damage the asphalt runway, local officials say.
That rule is what led to all the trouble.
Ronald Tutor, a California construction mogul, wants to fly his customized Boeing 737 here when he visits his vacation home in Sun Valley. In a lawsuit that has made Hailey's airport the focal point of a debate about the future of small airports across the nation, Tutor is asking a federal court to lift the ban that prevents his 170,000-pound jet from landing here. That's 75,000 pounds more than the runway is built to withstand.
Local officials say that if they are forced to accept Tutor's jet and similar aircraft they fear would follow it here, they would have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair the 6,602-foot runway and close the airport for three months while the work was done.
Tutor's case, which is set for trial early next year in Boise, is being watched by government and airport officials from California to New York. It essentially asks what obligation small, financially stretched airports have to some of America's wealthiest people, and it comes at a time of tight government budgets and costly new security requirements.
Several general aviation airports — those that primarily handle non-commercial aircraft — are being asked to accept Boeing 737 business jets like Tutor's, which is nearly twice as heavy as the Bombardier and Gulfstream jets that account for much of the traffic here.
Tutor's lawsuit focuses on the technicalities of asphalt strength and weight restrictions, but he finds himself cast as the villain in a local drama that is more about wealth, excess and a small town's desire to remain small.
"These are factual issues, but it's being made into an emotional one," Tutor says. "I've had crank letters, phone calls, you name it. I'm the big, bad rich guy."
The dispute is rooted in the roaring 1990s, when multimillionaires flush with cash began trading in their private jets for ones that were bigger, more luxurious and capable of traveling hundreds of miles farther without refueling.
From 1996 to 2000, the business jet market quadrupled, industry analysts say. Sales also were boosted by the rising popularity of time-share jets. Leasing firms bought luxury jets and then rented them to corporations that wanted to fly executives from point to point, but didn't want to own an aircraft.
Just as increasingly large SUVs became popular on America's roads, business jets became bigger and more extravagant. The Boeing business jet, a luxury version of the 737 commercial workhorse, was introduced in 1996 and sells for about $50 million. It can fly from Los Angeles to Paris without stopping, and it has full-sized shower, a bedroom with a queen-sized bed and a range of comforts that smaller jets can't match.
Lee Monson, president of Boeing's business jet division, says his salesmen expected to sell six or eight the first year. They sold 25. In all, they now have sold 82.
"This was the Hummer of the industry," says Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst in Alexandria, Va.
Boeing jets not welcome
But Boeing business jets often aren't welcome at small airports. Concrete runways that can withstand heavy jets are far more expensive to build than the asphalt strips that most general aviation airports have. Over time, repeated landings by such aircraft can break up an asphalt runway.
The airport in Stuart, Fla., just north of the wealthy island enclave of Palm Beach, faced the issue two years ago. Willie Gary, a personal injury lawyer and philanthropist, bought a luxurious 737 and wanted to bring it home to Witham Field. After threatening to fight Stuart's 105,000-pound weight limit "all the way to the Supreme Court," he modified his jet so it was 500 pounds under the limit.
In Cincinnati, Lunken Airport allows overweight aircraft to land a dozen times a month to accommodate Boeing business jets and other large aircraft. Last December, City Council members considered raising the airport's weight limit from 70,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds. But residents objected, so the council kept the existing limit and ordered a study of the issue.
Other airports make no exceptions. Denver's Centennial Airport — the second-busiest general aviation airport in the country, behind Teterboro Airport in New York City's New Jersey suburbs — strictly enforces its 75,000-pound limit.
Robert Olislagers, director of Centennial, turned away a team of Boeing executives who wanted to land a 737 there in 2001, when they flew to Denver to scout for possible locations for Boeing's new headquarters.
Boeing eventually moved to Chicago, saying it wanted to be closer to more of its customers and to the East Coast. But Olislagers briefly was famous in Denver because of his decision.
He shrugs it off. "If your SUV doesn't fit in that compact parking space," he says, "then it should be parked somewhere else."
Boeing, eager to market its luxury business jets, is pressing for Teterboro to allow larger jets. Teterboro's weight limit is 100,000 pounds; local officials have resisted efforts to expand its operations.
"We're not just talking about asphalt strength, which is clearly inadequate to handle this oversized aircraft," says U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, D-N.J. He is on the House transportation appropriations panel and opposes efforts to allow big jets at Teterboro. "We're also talking about this massive aircraft flying over the community and landing in the heart of it."
In 1999, Boeing asked the Federal Aviation Administration to grant a waiver that would allow 737 business jets to land at Teterboro. The FAA said no. Boeing has asked the FAA to reconsider and also is negotiating with the airport.
Communities can limit airport growth by restricting jet noise and weight. The FAA provides $3 billion in grants to many of the nation's 3,000 airports and requires airports that accept the grants to agree not to unjustly discriminate against access to their facility, says David Bennett, who oversees airport regulation for the FAA.
In July, the agency announced it is considering a plan that would allow heavier aircraft to land on occasion at small airports, even if they exceed weight restrictions. The proposal is not final, but it has drawn fire from Capitol Hill. Rothman tacked an amendment onto a House spending bill that would ban the FAA from lifting the weight limits at Teterboro.
The Idaho dispute began in late 2001 when Tutor, chief executive officer of Tutor-Saliba Corp., a multibillion-dollar public works construction company, asked to land his new 737 at Hailey.
At the time, Tutor also owned a smaller Gulfstream, which he had used to travel to Sun Valley. Hailey's airport manager, Rick Baird, told Tutor that he was welcome in the Gulfstream but not in the 737.
For six months, lawyers for the men traded letters. Tutor offered to do his own study that presumably would show that the runway's asphalt could withstand landings by his jet. (Boeing has done such a study, which it has supplied to Tutor.) Baird declined the offer.
Then Tutor threatened, through his lawyer, to fly his 737 in anyway, carrying less fuel so it would land at a svelte 115,000 pounds. But Tutor never did.
Tutor's suit argues that because the Hailey airport accepts federal funds, it can't unreasonably deny access to the airport. "It's not their personal airport," he says.
Some residents were offended by Tutor's threat to land in defiance of the ban. He was called a rich Californian, which in the Idaho mountains isn't a compliment. In letters to the Idaho Mountain Express newspaper, readers asked why his smaller jet wasn't good enough. "A person as greedy and selfish as you does not fit the warm, personable qualities we have in this valley," one reader wrote. A resident of nearby Ketchum noted: "I'm surprised that Mr. Tutor's mother was able to give birth to him with a head that big."
Where the stars are
Residents here have catered to and endured the whims of the wealthy and the Hollywood crowd since 1936, when railroad tycoon Averell Harriman built the resort.
There is a ski run named after Arnold Schwarzenegger, who flies in from Los Angeles aboard a small jet. When Tom Hanks got into a legal spat with his builder over work on his home here, no one objected when the local judge sealed the court record as a courtesy.
Former Hollywood couple Bruce Willis and Demi Moore are still friendly, live across the street from each other in Hailey and are admired locally for their efforts to rejuvenate downtown businesses. What sets Tutor apart is that his lawsuit threatens to reignite a long-simmering debate between pro-tourism forces that want development and larger aircraft, and an anti-growth crowd that wants to keep the small-town feel of the communities near Sun Valley.
The pro-tourism forces have long wanted major airlines (with big jets) to come to Hailey and make the area more accessible to tourists from the East.
But the airport, between the foothills of the Sawtooth Range and downtown Hailey, has no room to expand.
Many residents worry that if Tutor wins his suit and is allowed to land his jet, the airport will have to accept other 737s. Residents fear that could lead to big airlines knocking on the door.
The issue "is way beyond Ronald Tutor," says Ruth Lieder, who was mayor of Sun Valley and an airport commissioner in the mid-1980s. "The owner of Sun Valley (ski resort) also would like to bring in planes that are too heavy for the asphalt. But he's not suing."
“We wanted AAM accreditation because we knew it would expand the museum’s professional practices, and we believe that when Air Force field museum certification becomes a reality, we can pass the inspection by simply continuing to keep our present procedures current,” Mr. Hibbitts said.
Exhibits are designed to take visitors back in time to places like a “Flying Tigers” airfield in China in 1942, to India where C-47 transports flew over “the Hump” in the 1940s and to Italy in a replica of a B-17 on a bombing mission during World War II.
Looking ahead, he saw a mountain about 50 metres away and was unable to alter course before striking the ground 