Final Tower Closure Information Released by FAA

Florida Cracker said:
I can't speak for other states but in Florida, city/county managers tend to be the only ones that can fire city, or county - department employees, to limit what you are describing. As I understand it, the mayor-county chairmen hire and fire the city-county managers but they handle personel.
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Details might be based on local policies/ordinances/laws, but the point is that there are certain checks and balances that protect government employees for a reason.

Employees of civilian companies that provide services to the government are a different category of employment. There is goodness and badness in the system. The good for contractors is that you can do a similar job as a soldier and make 5x more. The bad is that the Army can declare peace and you can be unemployed. The good for the govvie is that generally you get a great pension and the job is more secure...the bad is that your pay is generally lower.
 
wabower said:
Ashes to ashes. OJC didn't have or need a tower back when it was busy, why does it need one now?
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Next door is an even better example. And I still refuse to accept the ridiculous name change. I've continued to call "industrial tower" ever since and they've always answered.
 
Heh - I was in the pattern last week when the tower closed for the night. I almost self-announced "Industrial traffic..."
 
I still remember the incredulity and laughter from the locals when it happened, along with all the unending stream of print media that was part of it. Some PR firm cut a fat hog on the deal.

JHW said:
Next door is an even better example. And I still refuse to accept the ridiculous name change. I've continued to call "industrial tower" ever since and they've always answered.
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wabower said:
I still remember the incredulity and laughter from the locals when it happened, along with all the unending stream of print media that was part of it. Some PR firm cut a fat hog on the deal.
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What did they change it to? Frito Lays Extra Crunchy Tower?
 
denverpilot said:
Interesting. Looks like the vast difference is in salary.

They don't say if the number of years of service as a controller was factored in normalizing those numbers.
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Actually, the vast difference was in the number of people staffing the tower (16 compared to 6). The salary difference was roughly a 32% premium.

The statistic that I found the most striking was that the contract towers were far safer with roughly 1/4 the operational errors and operational deviations, and 1/2 the runway incursions (all in a per operation comparison)

A very substantial increase in the safety record with 1/3 as many people...pretty impressive.
 
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timwinters said:
Actually, the vast difference was in the number of people staffing the tower (16 compared to 6). The salary difference was roughly a 32% premium.

The statistic that I found the most striking was that the contract towers were far safer with roughly 1/4 the operational errors and operational deviations, and 1/2 the runway incursions (all in a per operation comparison)

A very substantial increase in the safety record with 1/3 as many people...pretty impressive.
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Too many cooks spoils the broth???? Or ... Everybody thought Somebody would do it. Anybody could do it, but Nobody did.
 
douglas393 said:
Too many cooks spoils the broth???? Or ... Everybody thought Somebody would do it. Anybody could do it, but Nobody did.
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Could be, could also be a difference in reporting, contract towers may not be reporting some of the more minor issues. Also are the stats raw numbers or weighted by the number of movements?
 
Henning said:
Also are the stats raw numbers or weighted by the number of movements?
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Reading isn't your forte is it? Look again.

timwinters said:
(all in a per operation comparison)
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This seems to be a regular occurrence...just yesterday I read other one that made me think to myself, "dammm...Henning, why don't you read what the guy wrote before responding."

Read then Post.

An order we all ought to strive for.

:rolleyes2:
 
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Anyone know if the FAA is still planning to close a bunch of FAA manned towers? They once published a list that included almost every towered field in MN including my home base (KFCM) but lately all the talk seems to be about contract towers.
 
gismo said:
Anyone know if the FAA is still planning to close a bunch of FAA manned towers? They once published a list that included almost every towered field in MN including my home base (KFCM) but lately all the talk seems to be about contract towers.
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From Associated Press:

The targeted towers are all staffed by contract employees who are not FAA staffers. There were 65 other facilities staffed by FAA employees on the preliminary list of towers that could be closed. A final decision on their closure will require further review, the FAA said.
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http://news.yahoo.com/faa-close-149-air-traffic-towers-under-cuts-193041009.html
 
AOPA has a list of dates for the closures, now. Short version: the closures take place on three dates: April 7, April 21, May 5. More than half will stay open through the month of April.
 
I just heard an ATIS from Nashau airport announcing the closure and they said it was for 13 days, what's up with that? Is this just a 2 week sequester?
 
Henning said:
I just heard an ATIS from Nashau airport announcing the closure and they said it was for 13 days, what's up with that? Is this just a 2 week sequester?
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In 13 days, not for 13 days.
 
Henning said:
I just heard an ATIS from Nashau airport announcing the closure and they said it was for 13 days, what's up with that? Is this just a 2 week sequester?
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One of our neighbor's kids works for the FAA and said the center controllers were given a notice that they must work 11 days between now and fall FOR NO PAY due to sequestration.
I CAN'T believe that he has that right. It can't be that our gov't is using slave labor tactics.
 
Florida Cracker said:
One of our neighbor's kids works for the FAA and said the center controllers were given a notice that they must work 11 days between now and fall FOR NO PAY due to sequestration.
I CAN'T believe that he has that right. It can't be that our gov't is using slave labor tactics.
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You make it sound like there's something wrong with involuntary servitude.
 
iflyforfun said:
I was based out of Purdue (KLAF) for a 3 year where tower operates during the day and most traffic is due to Aviation school. Even with all that traffic it only has 260 ops per day. I would have been VERY comfortable flying into and out of Purdue with no tower, but I'm sure the school would have been unhappy.
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I'm based out of there as well. It's one of the busier (if not the busiest) class D's in IN and I'm happy it wasn't closed. From a practical aspect, you are correct that it would probably be safe (although maybe not as safe) with no tower. But the fact that there's a tower is really valuable for training purposes.
 
According to this website St Augustine (SGJ) is considered a small airport with 322 flight ops
per day while Central Illinois Regional (BMI) is a large airport with 88 flight ops.

What are they using to determine size? Land mass, runway length and/or width?

And where did they get the flight ops numbers from? Airnav has numbers that differ. :dunno:
 
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