AOPA Mag This Month

All that infrastructure that is supposedly subsidised for GA exists
solely for the benefit of business and the airlines. Light GA would
continue to exist quite happily without ATC or the FAA (indeed, would
probably work better) or any of these other so-called subsidised
services which only are actually required because of the airlines or
for-profit business aviation.

One need only look at the explosion of experimental types (5000+ RVs
alone!) to see what *could* happen to GA if the FAA would get the hell
out of the way.

On 90% of my flights, I need ATC like I need an enema. On 5% of my
flights, I need them only because some silly rule *says* I do (when,
in fact, it would probably work better without them). On the
remaining 5%, I absolutely, positively need ATC.

So, I say reduce their budget by 95%. It won't affect me -- or tens
of thousands of pilots like me -- in the least.

Funny thing is, back in the good old days (when ATC and pilots were on
the same side), local controllers used to practically BEG us to use
flight following, because it helped their budgets.

Now I see we were only cutting our own throats by doing so. Now they
can point to statistics showing "all those little planes using flight
following" and use them as a justification to add users fees.

We were suckered.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"