So this is a story involving the city/airport of Stuttgart, and the city/airport of Böblingen. For reference (in case you aren't former US Army or stationed in the area).....Stuttgart is down in the SW region of Germany....mostly flat. Böblingen is about 10 km away from Stuttgart (city).
If you were judging airport to airport....Stuttgart's airport is to the south of Stuttgart. The Böblingen airport? Well....it mostly dissolved away in the past 20 years. The control tower, hangars and support structure have been all torn down. Officially on the books....what they do operate is a helipad. That's it.
So, a number of months ago....the Greenpeace folks went and asked for a survey of the shortest routine commercial flights, and a normal regular flight came up between Böblingen and Stuttgart's airport....roughly a 10 minute flight. Naturally, this disturbed the Greenpeace folks....as totally unnecessary.
They yanked on the chain and wanted an explanation. This was mostly about C02 use, and they were going to halt the terrible flight business.
So the topic came up and no one knows of any regular flight between the two.
The type of plane used? A C208 type....small prop plane.
Using the helipad? Well....no one agrees that this happens.
The company that did the survey for Greenpeace? They seem to suggest now that the pilots using the C208....have a transponder in use...that the three-letter code for Böblingen, while they are actually taking off from Stuttgart's Airport. Illegal? Well....no one has said that.
This whole discussion turning into a comedy? I started add up the man-hours wasted on this....Greenpeace, the research company, the two airports, two mayors and so forth. I would imagine a minimum of 100 man-hours were wasted here...all centered on some waste of C02 and air travel....which in reality....never occurred.
Kinda funny....as German humor goes.
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