If you were wealthy, like Moonlighting residuals and Fifth Element merchandising-revenue wealthy, wouldn’t you want to build your own airport? Of course you would. Well, Bruce Willis is precisely that level of wealthy, and he’s building an airport in the middle of Idaho. But it’s also going to be a lot bigger and busier than most people originally thought.
The airport is to be called Soldier Field Airport, and it’s being built about ten miles east of Fairfield, Idaho, a thriving megalopolis of 416 people. Though sometimes referred to as an airstrip, the scale of the runway suggests something closer to an actual airport: The runway is 8,500 feet long and 100 feet wide. That’s big enough to accommodate most commercial airliners.
The runway will be concrete, and the airport is expected to house at least 20 aircraft and have about 500 landings of various types of planes every month, according to documents filed with the FAA.
That’s a lot of air traffic for the middle of Idaho.
It’s not exactly clear what Willis is planning on doing with the airport, though there is speculation that it will become a public airport at some point. For some reason.
There are some zoning issues to be worked out, since part of the runway will be in an AG-5 zone, which is agricultural. A number of local residents are opposed to the airport being built in the area. Other parts of the land are zoned AG-80, which did allow for airstrips to be built, at least until May 2017, when they were declared illegal, though that decision was changed back in November 2017.
Ugh, zoning, am I right?
Look, if anyone is really worried, don’t be. After all, Bruce Willis was the man that gave the world Bruno:
See? That should ease everyone’s concerns. Clearly the man knows what he’s doing.