Nicholas Graham recently wrote an excellent article in the Loudoun Times Mirror, AOL Turns 25. A companion piece A Landmark Loudoun Land Deal Back in 1996 tells the story of how AOL came to Loudoun County. Why British Aerospace moved to Loudoun County and built their North American Headquarters into which AOL settled 10 years later is another interesting story not known to many.
It all started with the Leesburg Airport. I was developing a business at this airport in the early 1980s. (See A Tale of Two Airports) One big problem was that there were no business jets based at the Leesburg Airport. I soon discovered that there were no business jets in all of Loudoun County including Dulles International Airport, the only other airport in the County where business jets could land.
The reason soon became apparent. Loudoun County had a personal property tax of 5% on aircraft and other equipment. There was no such tax in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Washington National Airport, now Reagan National, BWI in Baltimore, Frederick Municipal, and many other Maryland airports had many based business jets. I was on the board of the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce and convinced the Board to help me lobby the Board of Supervisors to eliminate the personal property tax on aircraft. I arranged for Frank Raflo, the Chairman of the Board, to visit with the CEO of MCI, Orville Wright. (I didn’t make that name up.) MCI was planning to buy two business jets and was considering basing them at BWI. These were $30 million airplanes. The choice of paying the $3 million tax each year in Virginia as opposed to paying nothing in Maryland was easy. I told Raflo that the economic impact of just these two airplanes would far out-strip the small sum being collected on the few small airplanes based in the County. Wright confirmed my numbers.
Raflo convinced the Board. The vote was unanimous to reduce the tax from 5% to 1%. The rest is history. Within a year four large jet hangars were built at Dulles. MCI now had four jets, and Exxon/Mobile, and Gannet moved their business jets and flight departments to Dulles. Many others followed.
British Aerospace discovered that Virginia law classified flight simulators as aircraft. When Fairfax County refused to lower their tax, British Aerospace built three simulator buildings in Loudoun County on property near their headquarters but on the west side of Route 28 in Loudoun County. The building housed three $15 flight simulators. Next they built their North American headquarters building on the same land. Ten years later BA left and AOL moved in.
I quit my day job, and for almost 15 years, took on the task of changing Godfrey Field from a field into a real airport. For most of these years the strong bond I formed with my company and the Town of Leesburg created great things at the airport. I attracted a major FAA facility to the airport, which financed the building of water and sewer lines from the Rt. 15 by-pass down to the airport. I built a jet fuel farm and 50 hangars, including the first jet hangar. By the end of the 1980s the based aircraft population had grown to over 200, fifteen of these were business jets.
Then the political climate changed and the Town Government took over. The entrepreneurial spirit died, and apparently so did the airport, at least financially and as an economic engine. Today there is one business jet at the Leesburg Airport. The jet hangars are all but empty as is the terminal building except for two flight schools.
All the other general aviation airports in northern Virginia closed in the 1970s except Manassas, Leesburg’s main competition. The Manassas Airport was founded at its current location in 1963 with a single 3,700' x 100' paved runway, a rotating beacon, maintenance hangar and office. This was almost identical to the Leesburg Airport at that time. But today the there are stark differences. Over 40 business jets are based at Manassas and one at Leesburg. At Leesburg there are 3 hangars over 12,000 square feet for business jets. At Manassas there are 18 hangars in this class. Almost 3 million gallons of jet fuel are consumed annually at Manassas and only 200,000 gallons at Leesburg. Major companies like Micron Technology occupy land adjacent to the airport. Nothing even close to that is in Leesburg.
Manassas Airport has grown into a major reliever airport for the Washington region, while the Leesburg Airport struggles.
I have some thoughts about how Leesburg could begin to play catch up or at least stop stagnating. I will save that for another post, but first I would like to have your thoughts. Leave your comments here, or send me an email.
