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United States Pilots Association |
There is now a single location for information on special use airspace where military aircraft operate. The see and avoid site, designed by the ANG with input from aviation groups (?) permits pilots intending to fly direct through military practice areas to get all of the information they need. The stated mission of Seeandavoid.org is to eliminate midair collisions and reduce close calls with good flight planning. Typing in an identifier for a nearby airport brings up all the relevant information about military activity in that area. Interestingly, the site also shows previous midairs and near misses. A word of caution. This system is only as good as (1) the information put into it, and (2) the people who will use it. We will test it's reliability by flight planning through MOAs and then dialing up the web site to see if the information is accurate. Watch this column for further info. For those of you who fly in the East central part of New Mexico, I urge you to try the web site and let us know if the information is reliable. Please forward your comments to Airone@troychesnut.com. Thanks again to Avweb for bringing this information to us.
The latest on user fees is general aviation lost in the Senate committee by one vote. However piston aircraft were exempted (for now) from the $25 user fee now being considered to be applied to turboprop and turbine aircraft. I have said before that if the bill passes in it's present form, it will not be too long before the FAA comes looking at small planes to increase their funding needs. I am also hearing that the bill faces very tough going in the House where many individual Congress people have heard from their constituents. We must keep the pressure on. Those of you who have thought about contacting your representative, now is the time to do it.
This bill and the current Kennedy-Kyl bill being considered are two giant boondoggles created to "solve" problems that in many cases do not exist, or in the case of Kennedy-Kyl to solve the illegal immigration problem by granting amnesty to the 12,000,000 already here. The FAA funding bill is designed to provide a different system of funding the next generation of air traffic control. In reality the airlines are terrified at the number of VLJs already ordered and have begun to try to lobby their representatives to force those aircraft to assume a lion's share of the new funding for the FAA. This is restraint of trade and unfair to the manfacturers and users of small planes. It is also a classic campaign by the airlines to bring everybody trying to find an alternative to airline travel back into the current system. It is common sense to realize that a Cessna Mustang carrying five people should not pay what a Boeing 767 pays for use of the system. I have heard the FAA expression, "A blip is a blip." However, consider this. The airline traveler currently pays a security charge assessed on every ticket. If the airlines assessed a $1 per passenger charge for ATC funding, who in general aviation would contest a $5 charge for those five passengers in the Mustang?
Steve Uslan, President
USPA