GA's "fair share"

by Newps Nov 8, 2005 at 10:36 AM


Skylune wrote:
"You're making it a thousand times harder than it needs to be. User
fees
will not be on a per use basis, you will pay a yearly fee most probably

based on the weight of your plane. Canada has user fees. Your typical

single engine spamcan pays less than $50 per year for his user fees.
That's Canadian money of course. So even if the average US owner got a

bill each year for $50 it is trivial to the cost of flying."

But Boyer produced the video of the meter running! Maybe he doesn't
know
about Canada's simple fee system.

Done for effect. Even the pro user fee types realize you cannot charge
on a per use fee. The revenue collected would be far outweighed by the
collection process."

Boyer and his cronies should use an intellectually honest approach, rather
than the stupid stuff his organization produces when they object to ADIZ
("I fly a C-150, fear me!") or user fees (the running meter video). The
sound bite stuff from AOPA is really dumb. I guess he knows that an
honest assessment would show the true state of affairs: very heavy
subsidies for light GA.

Minetta knows this: don't let the recent love fest fool you all. That's
why he kept on using the "in my view" qualifying language at the recent
EXPO. (Even the AOPA has picked up on this huge qualifier.)

An honest assessment would start with the $$ GA pays into the system, and
then attempt to quantify the resources used by GA, including capital (the
airports themselves, including runways, towers, lighting, electronics,
etc) and operations (ATC services mostly).

An honest assessment would start with the $$ GA pays into the
system, and
then attempt to quantify the resources used by GA, including
capital (the
airports themselves, including runways, towers, lighting,
electronics,
etc)

No attempt necessary; public record. The airport grant money goes
big time to air carrier airports; smaller amount to GA airports
(and the small fraction who receive grants). And they favor big
city "reliever airports" for grant money. This is to take the
burden off the big airports during rush hour, delaying the air
carriers. An important part of FAA's mission, the latter. And the
grant money for small fields also favors safety improvements,
another FAA mission. And BTW, nothing in FAA's mission is to
foster the GA aircraft industry, nor Boeing. That stuff was
removed from their mission statement years ago.

Fred F.

Tax Srv said:
No attempt necessary; public record. The airport grant money goes
big time to air carrier airports; smaller amount to GA airports
(and the small fraction who receive grants). And they favor big
city "reliever airports" for grant money. This is to take the
burden off the big airports during rush hour, delaying the air
carriers. An important part of FAA's mission, the latter. And the
grant money for small fields also favors safety improvements,
another FAA mission. And BTW, nothing in FAA's mission is to
foster the GA aircraft industry, nor Boeing. That stuff was
removed from their mission statement years ago.

Fred F.

Right. And using that data, the Reason Foundation shows GA as very
heavily subsidized using miles travelled as the metric.

"Skylune" wrote in message
lkaboutaviation.com...
Tax Srv said:
No attempt necessary; public record. The airport grant money goes
big time to air carrier airports; smaller amount to GA airports
(and the small fraction who receive grants). And they favor big
city "reliever airports" for grant money. This is to take the
burden off the big airports during rush hour, delaying the air
carriers. An important part of FAA's mission, the latter. And the
grant money for small fields also favors safety improvements,
another FAA mission. And BTW, nothing in FAA's mission is to
foster the GA aircraft industry, nor Boeing. That stuff was
removed from their mission statement years ago.

Fred F.

Right. And using that data, the Reason Foundation shows GA as very
heavily subsidized using miles travelled as the metric.


Miles traveled is not a useful metric. The only metric that would at all be
useful is how much would they save if a given group weren't using the
system. Let's say I plan to go fly today out of my uncontrolled airport. The
FAA isn't going to save 1/1,000,000th of a dime should I or any other
recreational flyers choose to NOT fly to day. In fact it will cost them in
unearned fuel taxes.

They aren't widening the runway for me there not even doing it for the
bizjet crowd. They are doing it so the airline that flys into here 4 or 5
times a day can use either runway.