We have made a somewhat painful decision to close down Civil Airports of the USA for several reasons, all of them conclusive:

    (1) Economy. The feature had grown to where it was gobbling up megabytes faster than we can shovel them into the virtual furnace. Perhaps because of the economy, viewer support has dropped off drastically and some belt tightening is called for. (The USAF/USN/USMC airfields links will remain open on the Military page.)

    (2) Redundancy. Where not too long ago there was one credible site covering U S Airports, more have opened their doors and are all doing a much better job, focused as they are on subject, to a much greater depth than we could hope to achieve. Better we should just add links and let them deal with that department.

    (3) Focus. We were going against our inchoate philosophy of not trying to be all things to all people. Aerofiles is primarily an airplane history and reference site, and we should stay in that area where we can better serve the cause efficiently and credibly.

The painful part is thinking about all the hours, weeks, months of combing through old maps and books, confirming locations with spherical coordinates, digging up photos, and typing typing typing. Well, at least, we can look back and pat ourselves on the head with a "nice try!" As Forrest Gump's mama used to say, all things must have an end—except for Oscar Meyer wieners, which have two ends.