GA paying fair (fare?) share

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

"Dave S" wrote in message
link.net...

So what would be equitable?

A per-seat capitation? A capitation based on gross weight? or a per-user
fee? While it would cost me more in the pocketbook, I have a hard time
seeing that I am financing my share of services using JUST the avgas
fuel tax....



What is your share of services? What do you feel is the marginal cost of
providing services to you?


I'd need access to the direct costs, personnel costs, as well as the
manner in which ATC allocates its "productivity" and measures
performance. Without them, I'd be picking a number out of the air. One
ironic way of looking at it would involve me flying at night and maybe
being the only target in the sector.. ATC isnt busy at all, but I'm
receiving 100% of their attention (in theory only) where if there are 25
targets, the controller is much more busy, but each target is only
recieving 4% of the attention/service (VERY bad and flawed example, but
illustrates the difference. You dont pay a higher toll at midnight cause
you are the only car on the road, so you are the only one the guy in the
toll booth can "bill" for his time)

I think a sliding scale based on weight would be the most appropriate -
it accounts for frieght as well as passengers. Again, without specific
numbers, and a lot of time to crunch em, this is beyond me. I would
probably be willing to pay an additional $5-10 for local flights and and
additional $20-50 for longer cross countries.. these are rough figures I
just pulled out of the air that seemed reasonable for me to utilize
services. If I didnt use them, I wouldnt expect to pay the fees.

In a direct answer to your question.. I havent reached a firm decision
yet on what I think my share is of the costs of the NAS.

Dave