Planes to the Burbs

The cowboys and small-craft pilots have something in common. Suburban expansion is also crowding in and pushing out the rural airports around Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reports. The airports' neighbors don't like the noise and their beancounters prefer the revenue generated by residential development. California aviation officials are on a campaign to inform locals of the economic benefits of the small runways, most of whose flights are businesspeople shuttling to the area.

Suburbs that close their small airports may be even more short sighted than the pilots think: in India, civil aviation authorities are eyeing small planes for commuter hops between, say, New Delhi and its suburb of Meerut, a distance of less than 40 miles. "Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel says he wants to see 80-seater planes, planes with even smaller capacity and turbo prop aircraft flying virtually like public utility buses in the skies" says a story that originally ran in the Hindustan Times.

That sounds like the perfect solution for this man, who recently won the Midas Muffler Longest Commute contest.