Very Interesting.
But this is noting compared to the rice farmers in Tokyo. I showed up for work one day, in uniform, at Narita International, after the big fight with them, and a large security team pulled us out of the crew van and pulled up the carpets and scanned the whole thing and went through every thing in our bags right on the side of the road. Then they waved us on to our 747. Stunned, I asked what that was all about. The Captain said "Last week, to protest the new runway, the rice farmers invaded the airport in crew vans followed by a tank and put a hole through the control tower!
That land for the cross runway, had been in their families for generations, and they were not having a runway going through it! Eventually, three more runways were built, so I guess they locked up all the farmers.
A couple of thoughts. This was an incredibly dangerous stunt. When pilots are landing at 140 some knots on jets, they are NOT looking at the runway at all, until the last second. We CANNOT see bodies laying on the runway, since we drive with instruments into the roundout and flare, only occasionally glancing up to see if the geometric shape of the pavement makes sense. We’ve landed on top of other airplanes sometimes since shapes at that speed look more like just smeared paint or rubber smears that are common on ends of runways. Don’t try this at home!
I question the logic of opposing air travel when it’s only responsible for ten percent of the global carbon footprint. You CAR is the main reason we are dying. Let’s start booting all private autos since everyone in the West has or aspires to have an auto, and few people fly.