Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You either needed them, or you didn't. Obviously, we didn't. Anyone else besides me ever worked in a FAA control tower? I fixed their comm gear. Man, I wonder what a tower control guy can do after being tower guy for like, ever. Maybe they can deliver pizzas or something. Salary gonna take a hit, though. Which is just what a recovering economy needs.... less money going in. It's like someone is bleeding to death and you give them a lot of blood and then you are like "No more blood for you, Cuz, Congress, that's why."
Congress cares about this. That's why they did NOTHING... because, hey, they ain't losing their jobs, right? One side can sit there and say the same BS for MONTHS and ... nothing happens. We need a fundamental change in Congress. If it doesn't matter that you can't do your job, yet you can still keep your job, you have a seriously flawed system. Imagine, if at work, they gave you a task, and a date. At the end, you say, "Meh, I didn't figure it out. "
YOU GET FIRED. We just get to wait a few years, and watch as the idiot gets elected again. It's hilarious in its idiocy.
Imagine ... if Congress told everyone to cut a lot of money by a certain date and the FAA got to that date and said "No one could agree on what to do."
What would happen then? Would Congress be like, all OK with that massive cluster#$@#? I dare say, heads would roll.
Yes, they need to be fired. The GOP prioritized their socialist corporate welfare programs above the jobs of hard working people, and for they need to be voted out of the office. There is no excuse for this kind of BS.
LOL..and the Dept of Transportation got a 36% increase for FY2013 which includes $2.5 billion for "high speed rail".
Gee, they can't put that on hold and keep FAA towers open instead ?
LOL..and the Dept of Transportation got a 36% increase for FY2013 which includes $2.5 billion for "high speed rail".
Gee, they can't put that on hold and keep FAA towers open instead ?
Yep, they are going to have to give up a small percentage of their increase from previous years that was sufficient enough to run everything.
I will agree with the idea that if those running things aren't able to live with a larger budget, they are the ones that should be fired.
I work as a pilot for a living and I frequently fly to a lot of smaller towered fields. This sequester will be an absolute disaster! Yes planes takeoff and land at uncontrolled airports, but if there happens to be more than two airplanes using the airport at the same time, I feel much better when there is trained controller managing things. I can only imagine what this will be like at towered fields that have a lot of students training. Five planes in the pattern practicing takeoffs and landings with no tower? That should be interesting.
The other thing is that it will very inefficient for IFR traffic without a tower. It will be one plane in, wait for the pilot to cancel IFR (hopefully he remembers), and then another plane out. This is how it is at the airport at Gaithersburg, MD. It can get very busy, and it is not efficient at all. Of all the things they could have cut, they choose to cut Air Traffic Control. The fact that our government would allow this to happen is absolutely disgraceful!
You already pointed out the solution, most of those small towers already have traffic that is IFR, but we need to pay someone full time to man a tower and one of their main functions is to indicate the plane has landed? Why do taxpayers need to pay for something that really has a minimal benefit for them, couldn't these small airports for private aircraft pay their own way. Most likely you are not a commercial pilot if you are flying to those airports.
"All of the control towers are at small- and medium-size airports, but together they handle about 5.8% of all commercial airline traffic, and considerably more business and private airplane traffic.
The cuts will not force the closure of the airports, because aircraft can land without air traffic control help, and some operations can be switched to other FAA facilities."
How many of you have ever landed at an airport that had no control tower? I have, while flying as a co-pilot/observer. It is no problem. I have even landed after hours at aqirports that had limited control tower service (closed at midnight, etc.)
another fine example of fear mongering by somebody, crying over a "problem" that any fairly competent pilot would laugh at. It simply isn't that much of a problem!
I work as a pilot for a living and I frequently fly to a lot of smaller towered fields. This sequester will be an absolute disaster! Yes planes takeoff and land at uncontrolled airports, but if there happens to be more than two airplanes using the airport at the same time, I feel much better when there is trained controller managing things. I can only imagine what this will be like at towered fields that have a lot of students training. Five planes in the pattern practicing takeoffs and landings with no tower? That should be interesting.
The other thing is that it will very inefficient for IFR traffic without a tower. It will be one plane in, wait for the pilot to cancel IFR (hopefully he remembers), and then another plane out. This is how it is at the airport at Gaithersburg, MD. It can get very busy, and it is not efficient at all. Of all the things they could have cut, they choose to cut Air Traffic Control. The fact that our government would allow this to happen is absolutely disgraceful!
Fly fire bombers for a while, out of uncontrolled air fields, with 10 or 20 air tankers making continuous runs; load, take off, fly 15 minutes, dump, return, land, reload, and do over, 8 hours per day for a week or so. You will soon find out how flying from and to a busy uncontrolled field can be done, and done safely.
Yes, it requires strong attention to detail and situational awareness. But, any good pilot should have those things anyway, right?
03-02-2013, 07:01 PM
i7pXFLbhE3gq
n/a posts
Looking at the list of airports, I'm not seeing the issue.
Of the airports in places I'm familiar with, none of them have significant scheduled passenger service. Most have no passenger service at all. Some are so pointless that they only have scheduled flights thanks to government subsidies. Many are located within an hour of a major airport. Some are located no more than a 10 or 15 minute drive from a major airport.
If we're going to make cuts, this seems like an excellent place to start.
80% of the FAA's budget money comes from "user taxes" that go into the Aviation Trust Fund.
Sequestration doesn't affect this. The Dept of Transportation is getting the cuts and they are directing most of the cuts right at the FAA and the towers.
Why furlough some paper pushers at desks when you can cause havoc in America by shutting down towers ?
We are but pawns in a political game being played in DC. They don't care about us, they don't care about the economy, they don't care about the debt and deficit spending. They are playing power games among themselves.
Rethinking the FAA budget - The Hill's Congress Blog
Like most other federal transportation programs, aviation has traditionally been funded largely by user taxes, including the passenger ticket tax, fuel taxes on private planes, and a variety of other aviation excise taxes. These monies are accounted for in the Aviation Trust Fund, which is the source of capital spending on airports and air traffic control, as well as a large portion of the FAA’s operating budget (roughly corresponding to its air traffic control workforce). Traditionally, aviation user taxes brought in more than 80 percent of the FAA’s budget.
Fly fire bombers for a while, out of uncontrolled air fields, with 10 or 20 air tankers making continuous runs; load, take off, fly 15 minutes, dump, return, land, reload, and do over, 8 hours per day for a week or so. You will soon find out how flying from and to a busy uncontrolled field can be done, and done safely.
Yes, it requires strong attention to detail and situational awareness. But, any good pilot should have those things anyway, right?
You're insane if you want to do that with the lives of hundreds of thousands of people each day. There is a very important reason why ATC exists.
The article doesn't make it seem like anyone is all that concerned. Technology marches on.
Sure, it's easy not to be concerned if you're totally ignorant of the careful safeguards that have been engineered into the flying experience through experience and innovation. Air travel fatalities are at an all-time low in this country, and you think this happened just by coincidence?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
