Safety concerns keep parade at snail’s pace

The planes in the Conoco Phillips Air Parade above Memorial Stadium kept their distance.

None came close to drawing the oohs and ahs that come with buzzing an appreciative audience. And the pace of Monday’s parade was slow, with 10 to 15 minutes passing between flyovers.

There were reasons for both.

The pace was slow because only one runway at Lawrence Municipal Airport was open.

“For safety reasons, we had to wait for the planes that were in the air to land before the next group could take off,” said Steve Craig, who served as the parade’s “air boss.”

“That slowed things down quite a bit,” he said.

The airport’s second runway has been closed to accommodate the vintage planes on display.

Also, Federal Aviation Administration regulations required the planes to maintain an altitude of 1,000 feet.

“We tried to get a waiver to bring it down to 500 feet, but it didn’t work out,” Craig said, noting that both Kansas University and the city of Lawrence preferred the 1,000-foot requirement and that the FAA, since 9-11, is skittish about low-level flights over large gatherings.

Lawrence City Manager Mike Wildgen confirmed that he and Mayor David Dunfield preferred the 1,000-foot height.

“We weren’t excited about lowering the minimums for safety reasons and because every time something like this goes on, we get calls from people about the noise and the commotion,” Wildgen said.