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  #81  
Old 02-06-2007, 08:25 PM
jrsites jrsites is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Collins
No, you are not understanding that correctly. Oberstar will oppose user fees for the same reason that he has been opposing user fees for year. Jim Oberstar is one of aviation's best friends. My reference to the Dems being in no mood referred to the other way good things go bad in Washington -- deals with the president. They're in no mood to make one. That's a good thing.
I do understand that Oberstar has been a consistent friend of General Aviation. And I am encouraged by the fact that it is he who is the new Chair of the transportation and infrastructure committee. I guess what I'm not expressing very well is my fear that Oberstar's voice against user fees may end up being a lone one. My sense is that the number of politicians (on either side of the aisle) who would support user fees is greater than those who would oppose them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Collins
ook, it would be a mistake to make this a I'm a Dem vs. I'm a Republican issue, although -- trust me -- people will want to make it that way. If we resort to that, well, then we're finished.

So maybe we should get this straight among ourselves before we waste any time.

Is this going to be an issue that we're want this country to puruse on its merits.

Or is this going to be another one of those stupid "let me see how my party things about this first" method of evaluating issues in America. That's gotten us in great shape so far, hasn't it. THIS is a bipartisan issue and this isn't a case of "I don't want to pay." Check the price of avgas lately. That's your funding? Pay your registration for your airplanes. That's your funding.
Absolutely, positively, 100% agree. And this is at the heart of my fears. Will Oberstar be able to pursuade enough Democrats to go against the traditional values of their party? Will he be able to pursuade enough Republicans to go against the president? Again, given that the easy, intellectually dishonest way to couch the argument is that "We're simply asking those well-off airplane owners to pay for the resources they use so that we can use general budget money for other causes", and that the majority of everyday Americans and their elected representatives probably don't care to know any more about the issue than that, what are the chances it will receive an honest debate from anyone on either side of the aisle?

And I'm in complete agreement with the rest of your response to me. I just hope the Honorable Mr. Oberstar can find a way to get that message through to his colleagues. Or that there are enough of them that care about the impact User Fees will have on General Aviation.
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  #82  
Old 02-06-2007, 08:30 PM
JimLogajan JimLogajan is offline
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Default FAA's burden per pilot: $22,600/pilot/year

The FAA presents an enormous fiscal burden to aviation ? as revealed below. Consider the following metrics, based on data from the FAA itself:

The 2006 fiscal year budget request for the FAA was $13.78 billion [1]. Of that, $9.746 billion was for "safety" operations [1].

In 2005 there were 609,737 active airmen certificates [2]. Dividing the FAA budget by the number of airmen yields rather astounding values for the per-pilot burden:

$15,984/pilot/year for "safety" operations, or
$22,600/pilot/year for all FAA operations.

Let's look at the FAA budget burden another way. In 2005 there were 224,352 active general aviation aircraft [3] and at least 6810 air carrier aircraft [4]. This yields the following FAA burden for each aircraft:

$42,161/aircraft/year for "safety" operations, or
$59,611/aircraft/year for all FAA operations.

Another way to divide the FAA budget is on a per flight hour basis. There were 26,982,383 GA flight hours in 2005 [3] and 18,606,824 air carrier revenue flight hours for the 12 months ended October 2005 [5]. This yields at least 45,589,207 flight hours, with some fraction outside controlled airspace. Even if all those flight hours had been within ATC, the cost per flight hour burden is still alarmingly high:

$214/flight hour/year for "safety" operations, or
$302/flight hour/year for all FAA operatons.

Another way to normalize the FAA budget is to compare the approximate number of controller-hours with the approximate number of flight hours. In 2006 there were about 14,618 FAA controllers [6]. If one assumes a 35 hour work week and 48 weeks per year for each controller, then one gets 24,558,240 total controller hours. Dividing the 45,589,207 flight hours by controller hours yields about 1.86 flight hours per controller hour. It is as if each flight had to share the burden of half a controller with one other flight. But there are in fact 44,865 people employed by the FAA [6] so the burden is even worse.

There are other metrics by which one may judge fiscal effectiveness of the FAA, such as number of ATC handled landing and takeoff operations, or by number of public or private use airports, and so on, and all are equally depressing. The objective here is simply to draw attention to a federal system that is fiscally flawed.

It seems therefore not only premature to posit "user fees," it is beside the point. Since the government excludes itself from market force influences by its monopoly of police force, the imposition of "user fees" impacts only ATC demand side, but does nothing to control an inefficient or technologically backward ATC supply side. Only if the ATC system is made responsive to market forces and decoupled from political manipulation would it be reasonable and fair to posit payment for actual usage. It would be a sad day indeed were a pilot flying from one private airstrip through class G airspace to another private airstrip forced to pay $300/hour via gas tax and/or usage fees (for using no ATC or FAA services at all) in order to subsidize air carriers traveling through class A airspace or otherwise perpetuate an inefficient traffic control system.

That said, why the heck is it costing the FAA vastly more than $200 per flight hour to "control" each flight? If the FAA applies user fees proportionate to actual usage, I expect GA could adapt. But the FAA is a government entity and if usage of its service drops, it is very unlikely that its budget would be decreased to match. Instead the burden would be increased on those still forced to use the services. Since air carriers would most likely be the ones in most need of FAA ATC services, they would use their political clout to force even non-users to pay into the system.

[1] http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...ia/bib2006.pdf

[2] http://www.faa.gov/data_statistics/a...ia/air1-05.xls

[3] http://www.faa.gov/data_statistics/a...FAA_2005_1.pdf

[4] http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_...me_cost_report

[5] http://www.bts.gov/xml/air_traffic/s...veMonthsSystem

[6] http://www.faa.gov/about/plans_repor...12-14-2006.pdf
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  #83  
Old 02-06-2007, 08:52 PM
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brianwallis brianwallis is offline
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Default summary

I am asking for help from a special person. We need somebody who is familiar with the FAA finances and other items to please list for us a laundry list of items that we could talk about and be factual. This list hopefully could include some hard numbers and anything else helpful. We could then post this list and write our politicians with this information. Thank you for your time and patience. The world is smaller than we think... I bet some of us are related to or friends with somebody in the FAA. Lets use those connections to get as much useful information from them as possible. I bet instead of six degrees of seperation between anyone in the world.. in ours... it's only two. This is no joke. I've seen the general aviation in Germany with the user fee system and you have to afford helicopter rates here in America to fly c150's in Germany... not kidding. It's so sad......
Brian Wallis

www.senate.gov

www.house.gov

www.nga.org
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Callsign: VOODOO sold RV3 to pay for ratings !!!
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  #84  
Old 02-06-2007, 09:29 PM
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osxuser osxuser is offline
 
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Location: Pasadena CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by briand
I would like to see some details on the proposed fees too. Are they going to remove the fuel tax?

Maybe there will be a "black market" for a list of AA, Delta, Northwest, Jet Blue ,etc. tail numbers. Just give ATC a number off the list. Be sure to keep those tail number sizes on your plane down to the min. allowed.
I'll dig this post up to note that the above is a great way to get yanked out of your airplane at the business end of an M-16. I've seen it happen at VNY for a guy that forgot his N-number changed after new paint...
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  #85  
Old 02-07-2007, 08:47 PM
iwannarv iwannarv is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Olathe, KS
Posts: 397
Default

After seeing the VAF homepage today and seeing the note on writing to our elected officials, I think I'm gonna do it (educating myself a bit more on the funding issue). Being 18 and a pilot I hope that some higher officials will take notice to how this will affect the GA future for young'ns like me. I'm definitely going to write one to the state senator for our area (happens to be a cousin of the family), and another to a U.S. senator for our area (happens to be a family friend). Maybe I can get somebody to take notice! It is important to get younger people involved in aviation, but it is crucial that we get young pilots (teenagers) who usually would not write to an elected official involved in the letter-writing process.
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  #86  
Old 02-07-2007, 11:20 PM
idleup idleup is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: San Antonio, TX
Posts: 281
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DeltaRomeo
Let me know how I can help!

b,
dr
Doug, how about making a form letter (or maybe a couple of them so they arent all the same) that members can print out, sign and mail to their representatives? and make it easy for them to get their addresses.

I have found that people will be way more likely to do that if a form letter is provided vs. them having to write one up...
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  #87  
Old 02-08-2007, 04:43 AM
PJSeipel PJSeipel is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Albany, GA for the moment
Posts: 294
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Quote:
Originally Posted by idleup
Doug, how about making a form letter (or maybe a couple of them so they arent all the same) that members can print out, sign and mail to their representatives? and make it easy for them to get their addresses.

I have found that people will be way more likely to do that if a form letter is provided vs. them having to write one up...
Form letters are likely to go in the trash. On this issue it is important to be personal! If we're too lazy to hand-write a note to our senators and congressmen, then we deserve whatever we get.

I do, however, think that a list of facts would be very helpful. Things like the fact that the FAA can't account for $5 billion or the number of GA flights that use services vice the number that don't. Things that would help us write our letters and make sure that any facts we choose to present are correct.

Personally, I'm not going to write until I've seen the reauthorization bill so I know what they're really proposing.

PJ Seipel
RV-10 #40032
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  #88  
Old 02-08-2007, 05:37 AM
Junior Junior is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: lima , Ohio
Posts: 2
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by idleup
Doug, how about making a form letter (or maybe a couple of them so they arent all the same) that members can print out, sign and mail to their representatives? and make it easy for them to get their addresses.

I have found that people will be way more likely to do that if a form letter is provided vs. them having to write one up...

Ditto That!
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  #89  
Old 02-08-2007, 06:58 AM
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N395V N395V is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Mendon South Carolina
Posts: 1,391
Angry

I have written personal letters to my 2 Senators and the Representative for my district as well as to the representatives of the other districts in my state.

The only statistics I quoted them were to recap that in the last election many of them survived only by the skin of their teeth and that AOPA was 400,000 strong. I also suggested to them that user fees in the wake of a no new taxes pledge was a bit of an oxymoron. Also drew a correlation between what the luxury tax in the past did to employment in the boating industry and what the user fees will do to GA. Had to do several rewrites to get all the vulgar words out of the first drafts.
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  #90  
Old 02-08-2007, 07:57 AM
Mitch757 Mitch757 is online now
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Falmouth, MA
Posts: 355
Default Another Attack on GA

Aeronews.net is reporting today that the AEA (Aircraft Electronics Association) has filed comments with the FAA to "upgrade" the requirements for A&P mechanics to standards similar to Part 145 to be in line with "ICAO standards". If they get their way, this will put many little shops out of business and dramatically raise the cost of any work done by a certified mechanic...if you can find one.

The link: http://www.aero-news.net/news/genav....838d&Dynamic=1

Mitch Garner
RV4 flying (for now)
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