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United States Pilots Association |
----- Original Message -----
From: Alliance for Aviation Across America
To: Steve Uslan
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 2:36 PM
Subject: Thank you for supporting general aviation!
Dear Steve,
Thanks to the efforts of Alliance members and supporters, there were two important developments in Congress last week. On Friday, the Senate Finance Committee approved an FAA reauthorization bill that maintains our existing fuel tax funding system, and does not impose any new fees on general aviation. On Wednesday, the full House of Representatives approved H.R. 2881 by a vote of 267-151. Both of these bills are supported by the Alliance and the rest of the GA community.
Your calls, emails, and letters made the difference!
The FAA reauthorization bill will now be voted on by the full Senate. As you can see, our voices are being heard in Congress, but the airlines and their highly-paid lobbyists continue to pressure Senators to vote for a tax break for them and a huge tax hike on general aviation.
As a result, we will soon be asking you again to contact your legislators with this important message as this bill moves to the Senate floor. In the meantime, thank you for all your continued support and help in reaching two milestones last week.
Apparently Marion Blakey has finally decided to do the right thing. Her last act as administrator of the FAA was to publicly castigate the airlines for causing their own problems by scheduling too many flights at the same time, to and from hub airports. I suspect she was only singing the administration's line while employed as administrator. Once free of Presidential influence she told it like it is.
I believe her final gasp influenced the House Ways and Means committee to unanimously vote against user fees in any form. This puts the lower house squarely at odds with the Senate over this issue. Once again I predict this obnoxious legislation, giving the airlines a huge bonus in the form of fuel tax elimination, will not pass the combined Congress.
Two new issues have come to light, emanating from the FAA. First is the notice that the 121.5 frequency ELTs are to be phased out by 2009 and replaced by a 400 plus MHZ unit which supposedly claims better accuracy and can be traced to the specific airplane by encoding its signal. Currently starting price on these units runs up from $800 into the multiple thousands. Supposedly, this will somehow eliminate the numerous false alarms attributable to the older units.
Then we have the FAA, staunch defender of General Aviation, embarking on a campaign to eliminate instrument approaches all over the country. One airport in particular, M. Graham Clark-Taney County (KPLK) serves Branson, Missouri. You only have to fly in there once to understand the necessity of the two approaches the geniuses at the FAA are trying to remove. Landing from the west you fly over an embankment alongside the lake that is considerably higher than the runway elevation. Landing from the east puts you onto an elevated threshold with a substantial drop to the highway below. I would bet that no one from the FAA involved in the elimination of these approaches has ever flown into this airport. There have been two fatal crashes at KPLK--one involving a Cessna Citation on an IFR approach in instrument conditions. There is no room for error going in to this airport. Removal of these approaches will ultimately require IFR traffic to divert to Springfield, MO, a fair distance away.
The airport manager at KPLK has requested our assistance in writing to the FAA to reverse this proposal. Please read Jan's news release or go to the USPA website where it will appear. Contact information will be shown.
This campaign is nothing more than a resumption of one that was defeated five years ago when approaches were pulled at West Houston Airport. Here again the feds involved never came to IWS to determine if there was a problem. It begs the question: What will the FAA do after they eliminate approaches, outsource the flight service stations and the air traffic control system? Gee, all that staff to perform ramp checks to make sure your medical is up to date.
Finally, for those of us who fly into Canada, Mexico, or the Bahamas, Homeland Security has a new proposed rule about to be foisted upon us. We must notify HS one hour before crossing the border BY COMPUTER, prior to entering U.S. airspace. I sure hope they can tell me where in Mexico there are computer terminals that can communicate with HS, or do we all have to buy Blackberrys? This smells to me to be a plan to protect the airlines from losing their vacationing passengers by forcing GA aircraft to comply with yet another ridiculous requirement. We are not the problem!
Steve Uslan, President
United States Pilots Association
Reading the Newspapers over Labor Day Weekend left me wondering just who is running the store in Washington, DC. Let's look at these seemingly unrelated stories you see in the printed media, not on cable or network news.
Border Security: The FAA has granted access to various unrestricted airspace for UAS/UAV flights without chase or escort planes. I am not privy to all of the machinations that went into this program, but I will tell you one thing. It will not be too long in the future before one of these and one like I fly meet in the air by accident. Regardless of NOTAMS, there is no way safe distances can be maintained between these two dissimilar aircraft. Please take a look at the USPA website and see for yourselves the variety of different aircraft contemplated and currently flying. This is the new age of border security.
While on that subject, an article appeared today calling attention to the tremendous increases in waiting time to cross over into the United States from Canada and Mexico. I frequently go into Mexico by car from Laredo, and there is no wait getting in. Looking across the bridge to the U.S. bound traffic, the wait exceeds four hours and is growing. What's the problem, you say? There are simply not enough people working the border crossings for the volume of traffic. Drive in any direction from Laredo into Texas and you must pass through yet another Border Patrol Checkpoint. Drive North toward Eagle Pass and Del Rio and you will encounter three checkpoints.
Have any of you noticed that Jet Blue pulled away from supporting the Air Traffic Association's support of user fees on small planes and the proposed tax reduction to the airlines, if the airlines collectively get to take over the Air Traffic Control System? It is no secret the airlines and their multiple lobbyists are hitting every Congressperson and Senator in an attempt to coerce support of this bill. USPA urges all of our elected representatives to vote NO! on this blatant attempt at yet another government subsidy of an industry unable to keep its own house clean.
The FAA announced on Thursday, August 30th, the letting of a $1.9 Billion contract to ITT Corp for the start of the next generation navigation system. Supposedly, this is the system the airlines are hopeful of controlling after it is fully implemented. If the Lockheed Martin contract taking over the operations of the Flight Service Stations is any barometer, this will become just another feather in Marion Blakey's cap. Have any of you noticed that the FAA is running about 1400-1500 controllers short of capacity, and this at a time when airline schedules are equaling those of pre 9/11? Have you all noticed the huge increase in runway incursions at LAX, an airport not readily used by General Aviation? There are not enough controllers on duty to keep the planes separated on the ground.
While on the subject of the Lockheed Martin contract, chew on this. It is a true story. An active member of USPA filed an IFR flight plan with LM. He verified the existence of the flight plan before beginning to taxi. His route of flight proposed to take him through the ADIZ surrounding Washington, DC. Upon becoming airborne, he contacted the FSS frequency and requested a squawk, and was told his flight plan was not on file. He was told to contact another facility on a different frequency, who did verify the existence of the flight plan, but could not give the squawk. He flew the IFR route at the planned altitude. By the time LM got its act together, he had flown into the ADIZ and was written up for a violation. He filed the NASA form and is currently involved with dealing with an FAA office in Maine. This is unconscionable. The controller admitted he knew who it was by comparing the route of flight to the filed flight plan.
Do you all wonder why USPA has so many concerns regarding the "Outsourcing" of the various functions of the FAA?
Steve Uslan, President