Sign the Petition to Save the Most Important Towered Fields

Dav8or said:
That's what I love about the blue board, no know it all snap judgements over here. Nothing but love for aviation and all that pursue it. Not like the Red Board at all, no sir! :rolleyes:

I have never seen so many pilots thrilled with the incremental destruction of the aviation infrastructure. After the towers go, the runways will follow. Now that we know the rich guy pilots are on board for tearing up the airport to save our children from crushing debt in the future, it will be easy! At the next round of sequesters, (and you know there will be more) they just have to put airports with less than xxx number of operations per year will be closed and then say it's the president's idea. They'll have pilots lined up around the block to close 'em down.
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You want a runway? Pay for it. Plenty of private airports out there, would be plenty more if the stupid gov't paid for ones went away. Waah waah waah I want other people's money to pave stuff and put up towers so I can pretend to be a pro pilot in my bugsmasher. Waaah:lol:
 
Skyscraper said:
I'm afraid that's not a sound argument.
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Your fear is unfounded.

it's like saying, "I drove all the way to San Francisco with no seatbelt on and didn't ever need it, therefore seatbelts are a not necessary."
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There is no similarity.

Also, define "Getting along fine" I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that.
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To meet needs adequately.
 
Skylane81E said:
Bingo, no one is saying that ALL towers are unneeded
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There are some towers on the closure list which are probably unnecessary, on the other hand there are some airports which will be worse off without a tower even if the tower isn't absolutely necessary. As I posted in the Santa Fe thread, I think KSAF is an airport which should not be losing it's tower.

I was at another airport recently which is losing it's tower. In talking to one of the operators there it seems that they are trying to get together a local plan to keep the tower open even if involves landing fees and higher fuel taxes.
 
Everskyward said:
I was at another airport recently which is losing it's tower. In talking to one of the operators there it seems that they are trying to get together a local plan to keep the tower open even if involves landing fees and higher fuel taxes.
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there you go. If it is genuinly valued, people will pony up to pay for it. If it's a waste they will limit their efforts to complaining on the internet about it.
 
JHW said:
there you go. If it is genuinly valued, people will pony up to pay for it. If it's a waste they will limit their efforts to complaining on the internet about it.
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Right, but if they implement these kinds of plans you will have no choice about the increased expenses if you land at these airports. You won't be able to just decline using the tower services. I'm sure commercial operators will just consider it a cost of doing business if they need to go to that airport but it will be an additional expense for people who fly for fun.
 
ClimbnSink said:
You want a runway? Pay for it. Plenty of private airports out there, would be plenty more if the stupid gov't paid for ones went away. Waah waah waah I want other people's money to pave stuff and put up towers so I can pretend to be a pro pilot in my bugsmasher. Waaah:lol:
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If the government stops subsidizing airport infrastructure, will our fuel taxes be reduced?
 
nddons said:
This is not the SZ, so I want to be careful in order to keep this thread here, but most pilots identify that these random closures of 75% of the contract towers, with no closures of FAA towers with government employees (my facts here may not be precise, but I think they're close) or other FAA employees, is not a budgetary reality, but a political ploy designed to extract the most pain out of the public.
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As far as I've heard, a decision has not been made yet about which FAA towers will close, if any, but it is true that the majority of the towers on the proposed closure list were contract towers.

I have a feeling that the FAA's decisions about what to cut are being made by bureacrats, not politicians. The apparent preference for cutting contract towers sure looks to me like a case of bureacrats protecting their own.
 
Palmpilot said:
If the government stops subsidizing airport infrastructure, will our fuel taxes be reduced?
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Of course. On your own airport buy your own tanks and get 100ll delivered for farm use only.
 
JHW said:
I can't connect that. In most cases, airports don't need towers, the tower is pork for local politicians.
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I'll help then. The justification for closing the towers is to save money and they are little used, right? The pilot community seems to be coming out and supporting that position, right? The lesson learned by politicians and bureaucrats is, pilots don't mind and even encourage trimming of the fat.

So when the government goes looking for further cuts to save money and to make "serious" cuts to the national deficit, the next place to look is low use runways. The pilots won't mind, because they're on board with fiscal responsibility, right?

Oh yeah, I'll also add that the vast majority of flights in the US are daytime VFR, so another good place to cut would be VORs, ILSs, Localizers, runway lighting and even beacons because not enough people are using these things and they are wasteful. Seriously, most airports are a ghost town at night and when it's IMC. Is it worth keeping all that stuff in place for what, maybe 10% of the pilots that use it? Airports don't need any of this stuff to be useful.

So when Obama comes out with Sequester II to try to further shame the Republicans and says that runways and airports must be closed because the Republicans refused to raise taxes, will you support that? Bottom line is, airports are pork for local politicians.
 
Sounds good, pull the plug. If only 10% of pilots use that fancy stuff why should the other 90% pay for it?
 
nddons said:
I think the reason so many (a very impressive group) are not signing this petition is because it is exactly what the lawmakers want us to do. This is not the SZ, so I want to be careful in order to keep this thread here, but most pilots identify that these random closures of 75% of the contract towers, with no closures of FAA towers with government employees (my facts here may not be precise, but I think they're close) or other FAA employees, is not a budgetary reality, but a political ploy designed to extract the most pain out of the public.
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Actually, no, that is not what they are saying. What they are saying is "We don't need the towers, go ahead and take them." However, I do believe that your hypothesis is correct as to their motivation for agreeing with the sequester. I also beleive there is a lot of anti government sentiment that wants the Feds, or "the law" removed from the field.

Like I said in my last post, when they engineer the next political ploy and decide to close airports, will you go along with that too?
 
JHW said:
ok, turn it around. What is your preferred criteria for 1) opening a tower where none exists, and 2) closing a tower that is not needed. Or do you believe every airport needs a tower and no tower can ever be closed for any reason ?
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Tell you the truth I'm not exactly sure at what point I would consider building a tower where there was none. Perhaps a certain number of near misses would do it for me, problem is that with just just common traffic transmissions and no tower there's no guarantee a near miss or other incidents would ever be reported, so it's hard to collect data enough to make that judgement call.

As far as closing one that already exists, Also, difficult to say because the whole question here is how to define "needed". Although if we've already made the investment to build, equip and staff the tower, I would say it's a bigger waste of funds to just let it become a ghost town slowly decaying into the Earth. Plus, it keeps jobs, jobs of people who pay taxes and circulate their money back into the economy. There's no black and white answer here.

What frustrates me is that had a certain political party been proactive in preventing the financial collapse of '08 and not engaged us in nation building around the world, and not given 780 billion dollars of no strings attached free money to the banking industry, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. I haven't seen the numbers, but I'm willing to bet that the operating costs for every tower in America is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the cost of one weeks worth of multiple theater wars around the globe.
 
Dav8or said:
I'll help then. The justification for closing the towers is to save money and they are little used, right? The pilot community seems to be coming out and supporting that position, right? The lesson learned by politicians and bureaucrats is, pilots don't mind and even encourage trimming of the fat.

So when the government goes looking for further cuts to save money and to make "serious" cuts to the national deficit, the next place to look is low use runways. The pilots won't mind, because they're on board with fiscal responsibility, right?

Oh yeah, I'll also add that the vast majority of flights in the US are daytime VFR, so another good place to cut would be VORs, ILSs, Localizers, runway lighting and even beacons because not enough people are using these things and they are wasteful. Seriously, most airports are a ghost town at night and when it's IMC. Is it worth keeping all that stuff in place for what, maybe 10% of the pilots that use it? Airports don't need any of this stuff to be useful.

So when Obama comes out with Sequester II to try to further shame the Republicans and says that runways and airports must be closed because the Republicans refused to raise taxes, will you support that? Bottom line is, airports are pork for local politicians.
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So again, your point is that no piece of unneccesary spending should ever be cut as it may be used as a template to cut other unneccesary spending ?

Yes, there are some FAA and state airport 'improvement' projects that shouldn't be funded. Taxiways to nowhere, 'terminal buildings' at airports without air-carrier service, perimeter fencing around 1/2 of the airport, key-card security gates that you can walk around etc. etc.
 
Dav8or said:
I'll help then. The justification for closing the towers is to save money and they are little used, right? The pilot community seems to be coming out and supporting that position, right? The lesson learned by politicians and bureaucrats is, pilots don't mind and even encourage trimming of the fat.

So when the government goes looking for further cuts to save money and to make "serious" cuts to the national deficit, the next place to look is low use runways. The pilots won't mind, because they're on board with fiscal responsibility, right?
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So low use runways are declared closed and yellow Xs are placed on them. How much is saved and who is saving it?
 
roncachamp said:
There is no similarity.
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Forgive me for misrepresenting your argument.

Are you not saying that because some airfields get along fine without towers, that any others of similar size don't need towers either?

Because if that is what you're saying, I think my seat belt analogy is pretty similar. The concept being that because some risks are taken without certain safety measures and no negative results occur, that it's always okay to run that same risk with no fear of negative results.
 
weilke said:
So again, your point is that no piece of unneccesary spending should ever be cut as it may be used as a template to cut other unneccesary spending ?
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No, that's not not my position. I have said from the very beginning of all this nonsense that some of the towers should be closed, but reactionary pilots on this board and elsewhere like to deal in absolutes and say "Close 'em all!" To this I object.
 
Dav8or said:
You seem to be the trolliest troll that ever trolled these trolling waters.:rolleyes:
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Answer the question you freeloading welfare recipient. Why should 100% of pilots pay for services used by 10% of pilots?
 
roncachamp said:
I blame the education system.

No.
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So you're saying I'm not educated properly enough to understand your argument? An interesting accusation coming from someone who knows nothing about me. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder here buddy, relax.

I was simply asking for forgiveness for not understanding you correctly, but since you seem to have no interest in clarifying your point, I'll just have to assume that I was correct, I continue to welcome your clarification.
 
roncachamp said:
I think most of us already know those things. But you dodge...
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Dodge? What am I dodging? If you read my posts you would understand that I don't want runways closed. I don't want IFR navigation turned off and I don't want all the towers closed. So why would I bother to figure out how much money could be hypothetically saved, or who would earn the savings if I don't advocate these things?
 
ClimbnSink said:
Answer the question you freeloading welfare recipient. Why should 100% of pilots pay for services used by 10% of pilots?
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Because those 10%er pilots are super cool and we should all worship them and give them what they need to continue being super awesome.:rockon:
 
ClimbnSink said:
Answer the question you freeloading welfare recipient. Why should 100% of pilots pay for services used by 10% of pilots?
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Do you pay for health insurance?

'Cause that's precisely what it does.

And there are many, many examples of things that are used by some people and paid for by everyone. Like container terminals, interstate highways outside your state, emergency rooms, military, firefighting and research aircraft, and so on.

Some things really are common benefits. Having an airport that works is a public good.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Answer the question you freeloading welfare recipient. Why should 100% of pilots pay for services used by 10% of pilots?
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Oh man, this is really getting entertaining. Ad hominem attacks even! How fun :goofy:.

It's in the nature of our infrastructure that we all pay for things that some of us will never use. To restructure everything so that people only pey for the things they use would require a lot more gov't officiating, which I'm guessing you're against (forgive me if I'm wrong on that)
 
Skyscraper said:
So you're saying I'm not educated properly enough to understand your argument? An interesting accusation coming from someone who knows nothing about me. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder here buddy, relax.

I was simply asking for forgiveness for not understanding you correctly, but since you seem to have no interest in clarifying your point, I'll just have to assume that I was correct, I continue to welcome your clarification.
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What I know about you is evident in your input to this forum. It's clear you have not had the benefit of a quality education. I don't hold you responsible for that, I blame the decline of the US education system. So consider yourself forgiven. You then asked a simple yes or no question; "Are you not saying that because some airfields get along fine without towers, that any others of similar size don't need towers either?" No, I'm not saying that.
 
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Palmpilot said:
As far as I've heard, a decision has not been made yet about which FAA towers will close, if any, but it is true that the majority of the towers on the proposed closure list were contract towers.

I have a feeling that the FAA's decisions about what to cut are being made by bureacrats, not politicians. The apparent preference for cutting contract towers sure looks to me like a case of bureacrats protecting their own.
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I agree, but certainly bureacrats are capable of being political, or by being strongly "influenced" by politicians or the political process.
 
Dav8or said:
Actually, no, that is not what they are saying. What they are saying is "We don't need the towers, go ahead and take them." However, I do believe that your hypothesis is correct as to their motivation for agreeing with the sequester. I also beleive there is a lot of anti government sentiment that wants the Feds, or "the law" removed from the field.

Like I said in my last post, when they engineer the next political ploy and decide to close airports, will you go along with that too?
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I'm not sure the federal government can just close an airport, unless of course they own it. As we learned with crime known as Meigs, the feds don't own most airports.
 
Dav8or said:
Dodge?
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You responded without answering the question.

What am I dodging?
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"So low use runways are declared closed and yellow Xs are placed on them. How much is saved and who is saving it?"

If you read my posts you would understand that I don't want runways closed. I don't want IFR navigation turned off and I don't want all the towers closed. So why would I bother to figure out how much money could be hypothetically saved, or who would earn the savings if I don't advocate these things?
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You wrote, "So when the government goes looking for further cuts to save money and to make 'serious' cuts to the national deficit, the next place to look is low use runways. The pilots won't mind, because they're on board with fiscal responsibility, right?"

Clearly, you believe serious money can be saved by closing low use runways. What are the figures? You must have some idea else you wouldn't have brought it into the conversation. Right?
 
please familiarize yourself with the concept of sunk cost. as for jobs and paying taxes, where does the money come from to pay for those jobs ? It's an illusion.

actually that's not exactly right. What i meant was the money comes from you and me, but that's not really true. In reality the money comes from a printing press.

Skyscraper said:
As far as closing one that already exists, Also, difficult to say because the whole question here is how to define "needed". Although if we've already made the investment to build, equip and staff the tower, I would say it's a bigger waste of funds to just let it become a ghost town slowly decaying into the Earth. Plus, it keeps jobs, jobs of people who pay taxes and circulate their money back into the economy. There's no black and white answer here.
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ClimbnSink said:
Why should 100% of pilots pay for services used by 10% of pilots?
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Regarding the VORs, ILSs, localizers, runway lighting and beacons that started this subthread, I would say that the reason is that a lot of the pilots who don't use those facilities prefer to have them available for use in an emergency. For example, pilots who exlusively fly by pilotage or dead reckoning can't know for sure that they won't get into a situation where they need to use electronic navigation. Pilots who exclusively use GPS as their means of electronic navigation need to have alternate types of nav aids available in case of equipment failure, outages, interference, etc. Pilots who try to exclusively fly in VFR conditions can't be sure that the weather will cooperate. Pilots who try to fly only in the daytime can't be sure that they will never get into a situation that requires landing at night. I think most pilots recognize that having alternatives enhances safety.
 
roncachamp said:
What I know about you is evident in your input to this forum. It's clear you have not had the benefit of a quality education.
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Drawing that conclusion from so little evidence is really going overboard.
 
roncachamp said:
What I know about you is evident in your input to this forum. It's clear you have not had the benefit of a quality education. I don't hold you responsible for that, I blame the decline of the US education system. So consider yourself forgiven. You then asked a simple yes or no question; "Are you not saying that because some airfields get along fine without towers, that any others of similar size don't need towers either?" No, I'm not saying that.
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Dude, you really need to get laid, you're all wound up and agro. You know nothing about my education or background. Simply stating my opinions that you happen to disagree with does not tell you anything about me.

And it wasn't really a simple yes or no question that I asked. I was asking for clarification of your point if I did in fact misunderstand your point.

There's no need to get so upset, I promise.
 
JHW said:
please familiarize yourself with the concept of sunk cost. as for jobs and paying taxes, where does the money come from to pay for those jobs ? It's an illusion.

actually that's not exactly right. What i meant was the money comes from you and me, but that's not really true. In reality the money comes from a printing press.
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I'm familiar with sunk cost. I was just pointing out that there is SOME financial reciprocation, even if it is only a token. And yeah, I'm saddened by the unsustainable printing of money, If only we hadn't put two wars and a bailout on our Chinese credit card, we'd be in a lot better shape.
 
nddons said:
I'm not sure the federal government can just close an airport, unless of course they own it. As we learned with crime known as Meigs, the feds don't own most airports.
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They can certainly stop funding for improvements, though. Remember when this article first came out there was a lot of objection to what it said, especially from GA industry groups.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-09-17-little-used-airports_N.htm

Federal lawmakers have used some of the money to build and maintain the world's most expansive and expensive network of airports — 2,834 of them nationwide — with no scheduled passenger flights. Known as general-aviation airports, they operate separately from the 139 well-known commercial airports that handle almost all passenger flights.

In the first full accounting of the 28-year-old Airport Improvement Program, USA TODAY found that Congress has directed $15 billion to general-aviation airports, which typically are tucked on country roads and industrial byways.

Members of Congress say the general-aviation airports can attract development and provide services such as air-medical transport.

The lawmakers also regularly use general-aviation airports to get around their districts and states, sometimes in planes with lobbyists. Members of Congress took 2,154 trips on corporate-owned jets from 2001 to 2006, according to a 2006 study by PoliticalMoneyLine, an independent research group.

Critics say the number of subsidized airports with no commercial flights is excessive at a time when larger airports are struggling to deal with delays in air traffic, and that much of the money the general-aviation airports get benefits only a few private pilots.
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Skyscraper said:
Dude, you really need to get laid, you're all wound up and agro.
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Well, I'm not wound up, I have no idea what you mean by "agro".

You know nothing about my education or background.
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I know a bit more than nothing.

Simply stating my opinions that you happen to disagree with does not tell you anything about me.
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Stating opinions says much about a person, but I don't believe I've expressed any disagreement about an opinion.

And it wasn't really a simple yes or no question that I asked. I was asking for clarification of your point if I did in fact misunderstand your point.
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No, it was really a simple yes or no question.

There's no need to get so upset, I promise.
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You appear to be one of those upset by this. I'm certainly not.
 
roncachamp said:
Well, I'm not wound up, I have no idea what you mean by "agro".

I know a bit more than nothing.

Stating opinions says much about a person, but I don't believe I've expressed any disagreement about an opinion.

No, it was really a simple yes or no question.

You appear to be one of those upset by this. I'm certainly not.
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"Agro" is American English slang for "Upset, frustrated, or short for aggravated".

And I must disagree that you know something about my education or background besides perhaps a few pithy details.

I did state my opinion that I don't think the towers should close, my opinion. You think that they should close, your opinion. Bam, a disagreement.

And again, I welcome you to clarify your original argument that the lack of incident at non towered fields is justification for closing all of those on the kill list.

I do apologize if you're not upset and I characterized you as being upset or "agro". I was fooled by your personal attacks about my apparent lack of education.
 
must be kalifornia english. I've never heard such an expression in america.
 
JHW said:
must be kalifornia english. I've never heard such an expression in america.
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Or you're just showing your age....

It appears to be gamers' slang.

That thing about spelling California with a "k" doesn't make you look witty. Petty is closer.
 
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