Tower Closings?

gismo said:
I'm surprised the fiscal year only has 6 months. No wonder we're running out of money.:D
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FY has 12, but when all of the cuts take place in the second half, you only have 6 to spread them out.
 
gismo said:
So the cuts are retroactive?
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Depends on how you look at it. The cuts are theoretically based on the funding for the whole year, but because of the deadline will be imposed starting with the second half. The money is doled out per quarter, so, since we already spent our Q1 and Q2 money conducting operations as directed by the President and Congress, all of the sequester cuts must come from Q3/4
 
Some enterprising Fox News reporter needs to gather up all of the threatened closures and then come to the conclusion that the threatened closures total 600 billion or some such figure.

And Ron, really, you know better. While they cannot overspend their allocated budgets they can BORROW from them because- there is no federal budget.

Absent a federal budget there is no budget to overspend - everyone us operating on a continuing resolution from the 2007-2008 budget - with a 3% increase every year unless they get a special allocation. You are telling me that a reduction of zero percent in the FAA tower operation budget requires that they close 600 control towers? Really?

What bull.
 
My home drone will be a **** show if the tower closes.
 
flav8r said:
Are you referring to the actual tower at KJAX or ARTCC ZJX?

I work out of the Jacksonville airport and even at the busiest time of day there isn't more than a couple of planes landing/taking off from there per hour.

Jacksonville Center ZJX on the other hand is extremely busy because they handle all of the traffic transitioning through Northern Florida.


On a completely different side note: Airnav.com does indicate the amount of air traffic a particular airport sees per day.

For example: according to Airnav.com KJAX has an average of 253 flight ops per day as compared to KCRG which has 435.
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I was talking with TRACON.

Also, those airnav numbers are...uh...not to be trusted. How do I know? Because I report my numbers to the feds. They don't follow up on whether they are accurate or not.
 
comanchepilot said:
Some enterprising Fox News reporter needs to gather up all of the threatened closures and then come to the conclusion that the threatened closures total 600 billion or some such figure.

And Ron, really, you know better. While they cannot overspend their allocated budgets they can BORROW from them because- there is no federal budget.

Absent a federal budget there is no budget to overspend - everyone us operating on a continuing resolution from the 2007-2008 budget - with a 3% increase every year unless they get a special allocation. You are telling me that a reduction of zero percent in the FAA tower operation budget requires that they close 600 control towers? Really?

What bull.
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I can't speak for the FAA, but in the DoD we pretty much have our hands tied right now. They will not let us 'borrow' from anything. We are already pushing just about every ship maintenance availability and aircraft depot level maintenance in Q3/4 into FY14.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I can't speak for the FAA, but in the DoD we pretty much have our hands tied right now. They will not let us 'borrow' from anything. We are already pushing just about every ship maintenance availability and aircraft depot level maintenance in Q3/4 into FY14.
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'letting you' and having it be legal are two completely different things - never forget the semantics of that.
 
Not just aviation... USDA claims that meat processing plants will be shut because inspectors will be furloughed.

PolSci professor noted that this is part of a strategy to make the public feel pain so they will force Congress to act. It is also part of the blame game.

HEF will be a real inconvenience if the tower is shut...
 
EppyGA said:
This was passed in 2011 yet no one thought to prepare in case it truly happened and yet we wonder why things are so screwed up.

Really good management at work here.
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A buddy of mine described this situation perfectly. I talked to him when he was going to see the "Nutcracker" last Christmas, knowing he hates that stuff. He told me, "I promised I'd go last June, it was so far in advance I didn't think I would ever have to actually go!":mad2:
 
EdFred said:
Also, those airnav numbers are...uh...not to be trusted. How do I know? Because I report my numbers to the feds. They don't follow up on whether they are accurate or not.
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They probably don't care, either...

It's a lot easier to verify accuracy when there's a tower, and at a towered airport they're probably gonna be getting fed funds, so the traffic counts matter.
 
Boo! There are no cut's to the baseline. Only to the proposed rate of growth.all scare tactics. Shocking. Lets see Reagan fired all the PATCO guys and the air traffic all moved. Albeit slow for awhile. This is Nowhere close to that.
 
LOL, they're gonna shut down KINT and KHKY? Oh the humanity!!!

That means like 10 planes a day are going to need to self announce!

On the other hand, KJQF is gonna be rough without a tower.

Isn't KFTG extremely busy??
 
flightwriter said:
Here's the list of possible tower closures released earlier today by the FAA:

http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/media/Facilities_Could_Be_Closed.pdf

Not for the first time, I fail to grasp the agency's logic in determining the closures. Double Eagle II (AEG) is the busiest contract tower in New Mexico, thanks to a large volume of student and military traffic, with my home field of SAF close behind. Santa Fe also has commercial service, albeit limited to about a dozen operations per day.

On the flip side, Lea Co. Regional (HOB ) is near the bottom of the nationwide list of contract facilities in traffic volume. ROW is somewhere in the middle.



I agree, no clue why Four Corners Regional isn't on this list, though if I had to guess it may be because there isn't another towered airport in the area for approx. 150 miles.
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Maybe if the FAA could properly spell "Milwaukee" on this list, I might take it more seriously. :rolleyes:
 
SkyHog said:
On the other hand, KJQF is gonna be rough without a tower.
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I've not seen Concord when the NASCAR guys are in and out, but every time I've been in or out of there it isn't busy at all. Usually one guy working ground and tower.
 
EppyGA said:
I've not seen Concord when the NASCAR guys are in and out, but every time I've been in or out of there it isn't busy at all. Usually one guy working ground and tower.
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Yeah, now that NASCAR has kicked off, it always seems that Friday, Saturday, and Monday are crazy busy there, even when the race is not in Charlotte. So many guys are based here, they all use Concord.
 
willywildes said:
Boo! There are no cut's to the baseline. Only to the proposed rate of growth.all scare tactics. Shocking. Lets see Reagan fired all the PATCO guys and the air traffic all moved. Albeit slow for awhile. This is Nowhere close to that.
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Yes, but our yearly operational spending is based on that projected rate of growth. Think of it like cutting an employee's expected pay raise during a time of rising inflation. The cost of doing business goes up, but the pay does not. Net effect is it sure as hell feels like a cut to the poor SOB who has to deal with it.

You can say it is scare tactics all you want (and there is a lot of posturing and manipulating being done by all sides in this mess no doubt), but if and when sequestration kicks in (and it is looking like it will), Naval Station Norfolk (and San Diego) are going to look a lot like the Halifax airport on 9/12/01.




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nddons said:
Maybe if the FAA could properly spell "Milwaukee" on this list, I might take it more seriously. :rolleyes:
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They did spell it right for the city in Oregon. Still funny. Woner what airports I'm going to fly to for my private training of they shut down those towers.
 
EdFred said:
Been there, and I agree!

Possible Michigan closings


There's really no need for a tower at any of these places. As long as they keep the ILS at SAW open, I'm OK with this.
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The only one of those I wonder about is MKG. I've only been there once and that was nearly 11 years ago so things may have changed, but I remember it as a pretty busy place.

ARB's tower closes early anyway. And I've always wondered why JXN even has one.
 
nddons said:
Maybe if the FAA could properly spell "Milwaukee" on this list, I might take it more seriously. :rolleyes:
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Yeah. Milwaukie is in Oregon. Funny that they have an airport with the same name as mine! :rolleyes:

JB1842 said:
They did spell it right for the city in Oregon. Still funny. Woner what airports I'm going to fly to for my private training of they shut down those towers.
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Go to Madison - They have excellent, friendly controllers.
 
LDJones said:
What this demonstrates is EVERYTHING worthwhile and necessary that government does can really be funded by 2-3% of the federal budget. The rest is just bloat the essential stuff rides upon!
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:yes::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
comanchepilot said:
Some enterprising Fox News reporter needs to gather up all of the threatened closures and then come to the conclusion that the threatened closures total 600 billion or some such figure.

And Ron, really, you know better. While they cannot overspend their allocated budgets they can BORROW from them because- there is no federal budget.

Absent a federal budget there is no budget to overspend - everyone us operating on a continuing resolution from the 2007-2008 budget - with a 3% increase every year unless they get a special allocation. You are telling me that a reduction of zero percent in the FAA tower operation budget requires that they close 600 control towers? Really?

What bull.
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That's what I'm thinking. I don't doubt that Fearless Tower was told that by the Admiral, but something smells very, very wrong with that. Losing 67% of the remaining Navy budget?
 
Fearless Tower said:
Yes, but our yearly operational spending is based on that projected rate of growth. Think of it like cutting an employee's expected pay raise during a time of rising inflation. The cost of doing business goes up, but the pay does not. Net effect is it sure as hell feels like a cut to the poor SOB who has to deal with it.

You can say it is scare tactics all you want (and there I a lot of posturing and manipulating being done by all sides in this mess no doubt), but if and when sequestration kicks in (and it is looking like it will), Naval Station Norfolk (and San Diego) are going to look a lot like the Halifax airport on 9/12/01.


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I feel for you, given that you face this threat on an individual level. But as a responsible citizen, I see all of the excess government spending, the programs that needed to die decades ago and I have concluded that the politicians have to stop passing this buck. If sequestration is what it takes, that's better than keeping the status quo.

As someone who works in the private sector, I can tell you that many, many businesses have seen far worse cuts than the single digit cuts sequestration is imposing, and none of those businesses has implemented a business plan to "Cause its customers the most pain", which seems to be the intent of each government bureaucracy impacted by sequestration.

Heck, my employer cut somewhere between 20 and 25% of its 30,000 employees during the recent downturn. That didn't make anyone happy, but we didn't turn away a single customer...
 
Please. a 85 billion cut on 3 plus trillion budget. A little over two percent cut. You have to be joking. I'm not scared bring it.
 
wsuffa said:
Not just aviation... USDA claims that meat processing plants will be shut because inspectors will be furloughed.

PolSci professor noted that this is part of a strategy to make the public feel pain so they will force Congress to act. It is also part of the blame game.

HEF will be a real inconvenience if the tower is shut...
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They should close Reagan National's tower. Make things sporting for the folks on each end of Pennsylvania avenue.
 
flightwriter said:
I agree, no clue why Four Corners Regional isn't on this list, though if I had to guess it may be because there isn't another towered airport in the area for approx. 150 miles.
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My explanation to my flying buddy about why they have a tower was that they formerly had a big flight school associated with Mesa Airlines on the field. The woman at the FBO said the school pulled out a few years ago. That wouldn't answer the question as to why it doesn't appear on the cut list, though. I realize there aren't any other towered airport nearby but there aren't a whole lot of people either!
 
EppyGA said:
I've not seen Concord when the NASCAR guys are in and out, but every time I've been in or out of there it isn't busy at all. Usually one guy working ground and tower.
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SkyHog said:
Yeah, now that NASCAR has kicked off, it always seems that Friday, Saturday, and Monday are crazy busy there, even when the race is not in Charlotte. So many guys are based here, they all use Concord.
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I trained for my PPL at Monroe (KEQY) and Concord was one of those <25mn airports that I was signed off to visit. I'd have to check my logbook to see if he put it as an official restriction, but my CFI said I could go there any day but Thursday afternoons, because that was when the race teams all left, and I could be sitting behind some big planes for quite a while waiting to take off.

I liked the airport though.
 
Of course, the current manner in which the cuts will take place is all for political cover. No specific program was targeted, across the board cuts (actually, a decrease in the budget increase). We should all realize this was passed by Congress and the President is on tape as supporting it before he was against it! I'm not trying to single any party or person out, it's been vacillation central, created a lot of uncertainty and the political spin and explanations have been inexcusable! Of course, the mandate to spend came when there was a President from a different party in the White House who threatened not to spend all the money in the budget which was likened to a line item veto; so, a law was passed making spending mandatory (brilliant).

Almost as difficult to understand this as an Italian presidential election (opps...guess that's going a bit too far (g)).

Best,

Dave
 
nddons said:
+1. Very easy to do business with.
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I should use Madison and Mitchell for my cross-country. Not sure Mitchell would get a kick out of my 150 coming in, but oh well. Close the towers and you take away options. But depending on the runway in use, I would fly over my apartment.
 
JB1842 said:
I should use Madison and Mitchell for my cross-country. Not sure Mitchell would get a kick out of my 150 coming in, but oh well. Close the towers and you take away options. But depending on the runway in use, I would fly over my apartment.
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Have you decided where to base the plane yet?

OBTW, MWC-MSN is >50nm... I used that for one of my dual XC's when I got my PP. :thumbsup:
 
kyleb said:
I feel for you, given that you face this threat on an individual level. But as a responsible citizen, I see all of the excess government spending, the programs that needed to die decades ago and I have concluded that the politicians have to stop passing this buck. If sequestration is what it takes, that's better than keeping the status quo.

As someone who works in the private sector, I can tell you that many, many businesses have seen far worse cuts than the single digit cuts sequestration is imposing, and none of those businesses has implemented a business plan to "Cause its customers the most pain", which seems to be the intent of each government bureaucracy impacted by sequestration.

Heck, my employer cut somewhere between 20 and 25% of its 30,000 employees during the recent downturn. That didn't make anyone happy, but we didn't turn away a single customer...
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Here's the problem and it is because of the way the government is orchestrating the sequestration....no one in the government is cutting the unnecessary spending! Whether you call it cuts or reductions in growth or whatever, the impact is only being felt in the operational funding. The pork and waste that has spread like a virus throughout the government (and what the Tea Party folks have supposedly wanted to eliminate) is largely intact. The expensive programs and ineffective weapon systems that Congress has agreed to buy will remain intact. Meanwhile the effects of the cuts to our maintenance funding are going to result in cascading damage that will be felt for years to come.

Think of it this way.....the government is like a human body with an obesity problem. The inept doctors treating the condition have elected to cut out chunks of bone and muscle in order to get the body weight within prescribed limits. Nothing is being done to address the diet, or even try liposuction on the fat.


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flyingcheesehead said:
Have you decided where to base the plane yet?

OBTW, MWC-MSN is >50nm... I used that for one of my dual XC's when I got my PP. :thumbsup:
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The guys at Hartford are looking for a spot for me there. That's my first choice. Longer drive, but they have mogas at the pumps. If the 150 doesn't have the mogas STC, it'll be one of the first things I buy. If that falls through, it'll probably be Timmerman.
 
JB1842 said:
I should use Madison and Mitchell for my cross-country. Not sure Mitchell would get a kick out of my 150 coming in, but oh well. Close the towers and you take away options. But depending on the runway in use, I would fly over my apartment.
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Why do you need two towered airports for your XCs?
 
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