How much can we complain and demand for free

Hey, I'm ready to take my haircut in terms of fed spending if everyone else goes along. I repeat, for those that don't understand the constitution: 'promote the GENERAL welfare'. Obamacare doesn't meet the test if many pay private companies, neither do most of the personal welfare programs like section 8, AFDC, etc. Wanna cut fed spending for GA? Fine, let's start cutting, but to be sure, nothing is off the table, and I've got a very sharp pencil.
 
drgwentzel said:
Flyers:

There was an article in AVWeb called "Who's working against your favorite apps?"


This article appears to be concerned that the FAA will start charging what is deserved for its aviation database information. It is stated that what we pay now to ForeFlight or WingX per year might double. Well, whoop-de-doo! 75 dollars verses 150.

Their concern was that WingX might lose users because of this and gave an analogy of, “What if Toyota doubled its price of the Camary?" Please! There is a BIG difference between 25K and 50K, and 75 dollars verses 150 dollars. One will break you, and other means you might have to sacrifice one night out to dinner and actually prepare your own meal that day. Please!

The FAA is already losing millions by the loss of electronic media dissemination of the charts they create and put together. Now the FAA is going to give us free weather and traffic in the cockpit and do we really have the nerve to *****-it-up about 75 dollars per year for the greatest free services in the world that they already provide us?
User fees are a real threat, but please, let's pick our battles and not nit-pick everything.

The way I look at it, we are a minority of golfers who play golf on an expensive country club and aren't happy that the entire country pays our green's fees and our country club memberships. NOW, we're bitching that they aren't going to buy us our golf balls and tee's too! Please!

Gene Wentzel
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We already pay for the data, it's all developed through tax dollars for the military. We are just secondary users of the databases.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how the middle class cut each others throats like bull dogs in a pit fighting for their life. Doing the bidding of their masters.
 
Henning said:
We already pay for the data, it's all developed through tax dollars for the military. We are just secondary users of the databases.
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This is key. The charts will be developed even if the FAA doesn't sell a single one. If the FAA wants to recover the cost of making the data available, that's fine, but if the FAA is trying to recover the cost of creating charts, that's a little crazy.

Whether the FAA was making a profit is irrelevant; I'm quite certain it would be possible to show a paper break-even or loss regardless of what was actually happening. Chart sales were a revenue source that's now gone; the FAA is trying to create another revenue source by selling data. Making the data available to the general public has a very low incremental cost.
 
Alexb2000 said:
Are you also in favor of cutting our airport budget to zero?
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How does that even remotely relate to my comment and the one I refer too?

And how much more you want to pay for that too? Leave those doors open long enough and you get Europe. But I have a feeling you'll never understand so why waste time.....
 
aviatingfool said:
How does that even remotely relate to my comment and the one I refer too?

And how much more you want to pay for that too? Leave those doors open long enough and you get Europe. But I have a feeling you'll never understand so why waste time.....
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Read post 79,80,81, then you jumped in with agreement quoting post 81, so I asked if you shared the opinion that lead to that quote. That's how it relates and it was a straight forward question, no need to get defensive about it.
 
timwinters said:
+1

And, preemptively, there will be some that say "but my taxes already pay for this".
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Yes, your taxes did in fact pay for the chart database already.

Nobody is asking for free golf tees or free charts!

Let's turn the question around. How much would the government save if General Aviation was denied all access to the chart database.

Answer: ZERO DOLLARS!

Maintaining and charting our airspace is an essential government function. The government itself is the largest user of the chart database. This database will still be maintained once GA is banned.

What rational people expect the government to charge is the marginal cost of making the database available to taxpayers who have legitimate uses for the data that they paid for.

Access to the FAA chart database is unrelated to the cost of paper charts. It's the cost of maintaining the public web server that taxpayers already paid for.

A full online subscription to the entire FAA 28 day aviation database should cost less than $1000 a year. The costs to send out a dvd should be on the order $100/cycle.

And since the data is public property it is in the public domain and can be redistributed for free.

Again, if we just shut down GA (as many would like) the government won't save a penny on charting costs. They'll still have to print charts for the many government users and they'll still have to compile and publish the chart database.
 
JimNtexas said:
Yes, your taxes did in fact pay for the chart database already.

Nobody is asking for free golf tees or free charts!

Let's turn the question around. How much would the government save if General Aviation was denied all access to the chart database.

Answer: ZERO DOLLARS!

Maintaining and charting our airspace is an essential government function. The government itself is the largest user of the chart database. This database will still be maintained once GA is banned.

What rational people expect the government to charge is the marginal cost of making the database available to taxpayers who have legitimate uses for the data that they paid for.

Access to the FAA chart database is unrelated to the cost of paper charts. It's the cost of maintaining the public web server that taxpayers already paid for.

A full online subscription to the entire FAA 28 day aviation database should cost less than $1000 a year. The costs to send out a dvd should be on the order $100/cycle.

And since the data is public property it is in the public domain and can be redistributed for free.

Again, if we just shut down GA (as many would like) the government won't save a penny on charting costs. They'll still have to print charts for the many government users and they'll still have to compile and publish the chart database.
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That's the kink the government has to deal with, the gummint can't really do much about the information being public domain, they've floated some pretty hair brained ideas to circumvent that fact, such as forcing 3rd parties they "sell" subscriptions to (like WingX, ForeFlight etc..) to use DRM since they cannot (i.e. DRM by proxy, then it's covered under the DMCA). I believe it was Seattle Avionics who said they'd just get an ultra nice scanner and put the data out for free anyway, which I believe is what they already do with their geo-referenced approach plates.
 
bartmc said:
That's the kink the government has to deal with, the gummint can't really do much about the information being public domain, they've floated some pretty hair brained ideas to circumvent that fact, such as forcing 3rd parties they "sell" subscriptions to (like WingX, ForeFlight etc..) to use DRM since they cannot (i.e. DRM by proxy, then it's covered under the DMCA). I believe it was Seattle Avionics who said they'd just get an ultra nice scanner and put the data out for free anyway, which I believe is what they already do with their geo-referenced approach plates.
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The real problem isn't that GA users are getting anything for 'free'.

The opposite is the case.

Government chart users have been subsided by GA users in the form of chart prices to civil users that covered both the cost of printing for the civil users and a substantial part of the cost of military and government users.

For decades civilian chart users have subsidized the government chart printing function.

Just like Borders Books, the Government chart printing office is losing customers to modern technology.

Now that the civil users subsidy to the government is drying up the government (aka 'the general taxpayer') needs to pony for the free golf shirts we in the civil aviation sector have been giving them.
 
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