New Iwakuni airport shares runway with U.S. military base

I guess the population around there has grown enough in the last 48 years to warrant resuming commercial service. What, no protests over the added noise of 8 additional flights every day? (Those four daily flights FROM Haneda need to go back to Haneda every day as well.)

Looks like the base is a "Joint Use" base. The image from Google Earth shows seven Japanese P-3 Orions and a couple of Australian planes in addition to some F-18 Hornets and a couple of SH-30 Seahawks parked on the tarmac that are probably U.S., and a U.S. C-130 on a taxiway. I'll bet they have fun setting up the airport to allow civilian use.

There is construction all over the place, but the airport, for those who want to use it, is right there, conveinent and not 1.5 hrs away like Hiroshima is.