Protecting the Runway: Airport Advocacy and the Long Game at DeKalb-Peachtree
DeKalb County formally recognized pilot Larry Scheinpflug for years of advisory board service at PDK - a model for how GA airports survive growth pressure.
On August 11, 2026, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners formally recognized Larry Scheinpflug, a pilot based at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport (PDK), for his sustained service on the airport’s advisory board. The recognition wasn’t ceremonial - it reflected what years of consistent, unglamorous engagement from one private citizen can do to protect a critical piece of aviation infrastructure. His story is a blueprint for every pilot who cares about the long-term survival of their home airport.
Why DeKalb-Peachtree Airport Matters
PDK sits in Tucker, Georgia, approximately 12 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. It operates two runways, offers full instrument approaches, fueling, and a control tower. It holds an official FAA reliever airport designation - meaning its explicit purpose is to pull general aviation and corporate traffic away from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, one of the busiest commercial airports on the planet.
Without PDK, that traffic doesn’t redistribute cleanly. Businesses that depend on charter access to Atlanta lose a critical resource. Regional flight training operations shrink. The GA ecosystem supporting the entire metro area takes a serious, likely permanent, hit.
What Airport Advisory Board Work Actually Looks Like
Airport advisory boards are not glamorous. Nobody flies airplanes there. A member shows up - sometimes monthly, sometimes more often - and makes the case for why the airport deserves to remain exactly where it is, with the same land protections and access it has always had.
In practice, that means explaining noise abatement procedures to neighbors who don’t realize the airport predated their subdivision. It means reviewing proposed perimeter development for future encroachment problems. It means advocating for capital improvements and pushing back against zoning changes that seem minor until they compound into something that can’t be undone.
This is the kind of work that never makes a front page. But when it stops, airports close.
How the U.S. Has Lost Hundreds of GA Airports
AOPA has documented the loss of hundreds of general aviation airports since the 1980s. Some closed from economic pressure. Some lost their land to development. Some simply ran out of political will when growth arrived from every direction.
The airports that survived, more often than not, had people like Scheinpflug - pilots who knew their commissioners by name, who could translate aviation value into language that resonated with elected officials who have never held a yoke and never will.
That translation is harder than it sounds. A good airport advocate is effectively bilingual: fluent in aviation, and fluent in local government. Those two languages don’t naturally overlap. Runway protection zones mean something different to a pilot than to a county planner weighing a road expansion. Economic impact studies are the bridge.
The Meigs Field Lesson
Chicago’s Meigs Field is the defining cautionary tale in GA advocacy. In 2003, the mayor ordered the single-runway lakefront airport bulldozed overnight - without warning and without following proper FAA procedures for closing a federally-obligated airport. Runways were scraped with X-marks in the middle of the night. By morning, Meigs was gone and based aircraft were stranded on the field.
The FAA fined the city of Chicago nearly $300,000 for the improper closure. The airport was still gone. The fine did not bring it back.
Most threats look nothing like Meigs. They are slower and quieter: a proposed road encroaching on a runway protection zone, a rezoning that permits taller structures under an approach path, a noise complaint campaign that gradually erodes political support. Slow threats are easy to ignore until they aren’t.
Why Metro-Area Airports Face the Highest Risk
General aviation airports are not primarily threatened in rural, slow-growth areas. They are arguably most at risk in places like the Atlanta metro region, where growth is fast, land is valuable, and the pressure to repurpose large flat parcels is constant and well-financed.
Legal protections exist - but they are only as durable as the political will that sustains them. The moment an airport appears to be an obstacle rather than an asset to a community, those protections become negotiable.
The aviation communities that won those fights were almost always organized before any specific threat materialized. After is too late - after is walking into a commission meeting where the vote has already been taken. Before is having spent years building relationships and giving elected officials a reason to fight for the airport.
That is the long game. It is also the only game that works.
What Is the AOPA Airport Support Network?
AOPA’s Airport Support Network is a national volunteer program that assigns designated advocates to specific airports across the country. Volunteers monitor local developments, attend public meetings, build relationships with local officials, and serve as the point of contact between their airport community and AOPA’s government affairs team when a real threat surfaces.
The network exists out of necessity. There are approximately 5,000 public-use general aviation airports in the United States. AOPA’s government affairs operation, based in Frederick, Maryland, cannot track zoning board activity in 5,000 jurisdictions simultaneously. Volunteers close that gap.
Five Steps to Start Engaging at Your Airport
1. Identify who governs your airport. Authority may rest with a county commission, city council, airport authority, port authority, or state aviation agency. Privately owned public-use airports follow different structures. Knowing the decision-making process tells you who you actually need to know.
2. Find out if there is an airport advisory board. Not every airport has one, but if yours does, those meetings are almost certainly open to the public. Attend before joining. Understand the active issues and demonstrate that you are a constructive presence - not just a complaint.
3. Connect with the AOPA Airport Support Network. Check AOPA’s website to see if your airport has a designated volunteer. If it does, reach out. If it doesn’t, consider becoming one. No law degree or political background is required - only knowledge of your airport and willingness to show up consistently.
4. Know your airport’s economic story. The FAA and most state aviation agencies publish periodic economic impact studies on GA airports that quantify job creation, business activity, and tax contribution. That data is the most effective currency in conversations with elected officials who need to justify aviation support to non-flying constituents.
5. Be a good neighbor. Noise abatement procedures exist for a reason. Flying respectful patterns, using noise-sensitive departure routes when they exist, and being thoughtful about early-morning and late-night run-ups builds real political capital in the surrounding community. Avoidable noise complaints burn it. Advocacy isn’t only what happens in commission chambers - it’s also how an airport community carries itself every day.
Why This Moment Matters for GA’s Future
The general aviation community is navigating a period of significant structural change. Urban air mobility infrastructure is being layered onto existing airport systems. Drone integration is creating airspace management challenges that didn’t exist five years ago. And population pressure around major metro airports - including relievers like PDK - is not easing.
In that environment, the people sitting on advisory boards and engaging with county officials are doing critical infrastructure protection work. Losing a GA airport is almost always permanent. The replacement cost, measured in alternative access to the national airspace system, is substantial and rarely recoverable.
DeKalb County recognized that, and they recognized the person who helped them understand it. That is a relationship worth building at every airport in this country.
Key Takeaways
- Larry Scheinpflug was formally recognized by the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners on August 11, 2026 for sustained advisory board service at PDK.
- PDK is an FAA-designated reliever airport for Hartsfield-Jackson; its loss would remove a critical resource for GA, corporate, and flight training operations across the Atlanta metro region.
- The U.S. has lost hundreds of GA airports since the 1980s - airports with organized, proactive communities have consistently fared better than those without them.
- Meigs Field, bulldozed overnight in 2003, remains the defining cautionary tale; the FAA fined Chicago nearly $300,000 for the improper closure but the airport was not restored.
- AOPA’s Airport Support Network provides a structured path to become a designated advocate at your home airport - no legal or political experience required.
- Effective advocacy happens before a threat arrives. By the time a vote is scheduled, it is usually too late to change the outcome.
Radio Hangar. Aviation talk, built by pilots. Listen live | More articles