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aircraft was not, however, reduced to zero. An assumption of zero operations by piston aircraft would not be reasonable. (3) Military Operations Military activity in this eight airport system is generally restricted to Downtown St. Paul (11,496 in 1988), Minneapolis/St. Paul International (5,092 in 1988), and Flying Cloud Airport (1,173 in 1988). Crystal Airport experiences a small number of military operations, averaging 600 ovei the last five years. The remaining four airports experience 100 or fewer military operations annually. Projections of military activity are not generally developed using the same procedures used to develop projections for civil activity. Military activity is a product of defense policy, and therefore does not grow as the market dictates. Increases in population or the buying power of a dollar, for instance, would undoubtedly have some effect on civil aviation. Military activity tends to remain at relatively constant levels. Based on this assumption, military activity in the system was estimated to remain constant throughout 2008 (see Table II-13). 4. PROJECTION COMPARISONS In order to test the reasonableness of the GA operations projections, a comparison was made between the projections of this analysis and the projections in the recently completed FAA forecast for the Minneapolis/St. Paul hub. As shown in Table II-14, the projections for the Reliever System compare favorably with the FAA projections. The average annual growth rate was the same for total system operations (2.1 percent), and individual growth rates were similar for four of the airports; the remaining growth rates differed in such a way that further analysis was required. II-10