Bush, Kerry, Airplanes

If he gets fooled by the Bush administration, should we let him represent us
in dealings with truly professional diplomats and world leaders?


"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Foster" wrote in message
...
Or, think of it this way. Bush is an incompetent moron; Kerry isn't.
Bush's incompetence and ego got us into a war we shouldn't be in; Kerry
didn't.

Actually, Kerry has not made any such claims and for good reason: he has
gone on record too many times saying that Bush fooled him on various
issues.
Kerry would probably just as soon his supporters did not make such a big
argument that Bush is stupid; it makes Kerry look even dumber than Bush.
It
makes his supporters look even dumber than that, but of course they are
too
stupid to realize it. :-)

First off, after your Halliburton comment, you need not have told us your a
Dem. PUH-LEEZ.

Next...



On the other hand, a Kerry administration would probably keep FAA a
public service, would not be as paranoid with security, would push
localities to keep their airports from private developers, but their tax
and regulatory policies will probably make it harder to buy airplanes
which you would probably be able to fly more freely if you could buy one.


Democratic candidates around here have ALWAYS been in league with the
developers who pad their campaign chests. In fact, many of the DEM
candidates ARE developers. This area is one where the GOP has been better.
They put property rights over big business in most cases. The airports
having been allowed to operate for years, now have legitimate easements over
the surrounding space.


So as far as the presidential candidates and GA go, it's six of one,
half dozen of another. I don't think the interests of GA will be much
of a factor in determining my vote, and it probably shouldn't be for you
either. Most likely people will see it from the prism of their general
views. If you are a Republican you probably think Bush is better for
GA, and if you are a Democrat you probably think Kerry is.

So for everyone, it's going to come down to general philosophy. From
what I see on the newsgroups, GA pilots tend to be conservative and
Republican (my primary flight instructor was a Republican candidate for
U.S. Congress in 2002), which doesn't surprise me given that it's
probably a group that skews wealthier.


I think its not the wealth, but the amount of independence and self
determination that skews this group towards Conservative and Libertarian
beliefs. The money comes from the same place.


However, in my opinion Republican GA pilots are in total denial over how
much their hobby depends on government subsidies and government
intervention. The same people who demand less taxes or less regulation
in general are right there demanding that the feds do something about
the closure of Meigs field or put more subsidy into their local
municipal airport. Yeah, some try to feed their denial by fooling
themselves into thinking that the tax they pay on AVGAS funds it all
(even the ones that don't buy AVGAS say that , but the reality is that
GA is a pretty heavily subsidized activity that we would not be able to
enjoy without significant government subsidy and intervention.


This is a whole nother ball of wax. Is it really denial? My position is
that the only reason GA is dependent on the government is government control
and interference put in place to favor the airlines. If our airspace were
more like our highways (idiotic HOV lanes aside), then the buses would have
to merge with the cars. Commercial air travel would be much more expensive
and rare. This may not be good, but don't then place the costs of this
choice on the backs of GA. You can fly a piper cub off your farm to your
friend's farm at no cost to anyone else. Privately owned and publicly open
airports can and do make profits, yet the they send their fuel taxes to the
government.

That said, this wouldn't be enough to make me a Democrat if I weren't
already one though. I just wouldn't fool myself into thinking that I'm
not being a hypocrite by partaking of such massive government subsidy
and support while proclaiming that we need less government.


Seriously, I think the 'massive' part of the subsidy is really related to
the national and major carriers. Don't blame me for using class B radar
service. I didn't create the need for the class B airspace - the big boys
did. If it were all GA, we could simply put up a slow fly zone, and see and
avoid.

At any rate GA is one of very many issues I base my vote on, and it's
not even in the top 10 of importance.


I have to agree with you on national offices. However, local candidates had
better pay attention to GA issues if they want my support.

Dude wrote:

Democratic candidates around here have ALWAYS been in league with the
developers who pad their campaign chests. In fact, many of the DEM
candidates ARE developers. This area is one where the GOP has been better.

Now you're talking about local politics, which as you noted below is a
different issue. There are plenty of places, my home county included,
where there are plenty of local Democratic politicians who are
right-wing developer cronies, simply because Republicans never get
elected to local office so those "Democrats" are actually Republicans in
Democratic clothes IMO. If there were a viable Republican party in my
county, those people would be Republicans, but they register Democratic
to give themselves a chance to get elected. Also, since almost all of
the money in local races is developer money (around here anyway), it's
the rare politician of any party that can get elected without their support.

But on a national level, the Republicans are more likely to be the party
of the homebuilders and developers -- just look at where they put their
political donations; those people are not dumb with their money. But we
digress, as this thread is about national elections.

which doesn't surprise me given that it's
probably a group that skews wealthier.

I think its not the wealth, but the amount of independence and self
determination that skews this group towards Conservative and Libertarian
beliefs.

There's that denial again. Given how much our government actively spends
and regulates to make GA as we know it possible, and given how heavily
GA pilots depend on government services and subsidies, it's just
laughable to say that GA pilots' Republican leaning comes from being a
more independent and self-determining group. Pilots are a wealthier
group who use their wealth to buy themselves some measure of
independence and self-determination, not to mention influence over how
government policies and spending are carried out to their benefit. But
we are no more independent and self-determining than the farmers who
collect their subsidy and price support checks and benefit from
market-limiting laws while calling themselves independent and
self-determining.

(and I will resist going into how silly it is to say that Republicans
are more self-determining, given their party's views on social issues
and regulation of private, personal behavior).

but the reality is that
GA is a pretty heavily subsidized activity that we would not be able to
enjoy without significant government subsidy and intervention.

This is a whole nother ball of wax. Is it really denial? My position is
that the only reason GA is dependent on the government is government control
and interference put in place to favor the airlines. If our airspace were
more like our highways (idiotic HOV lanes aside),

Driving on highways? Well, there's another heavily subsidized activity,
and using that as a model does not do much to make your case that GA
could be successful without govt subsidy.

You can fly a piper cub off your farm to your
friend's farm at no cost to anyone else. Privately owned and publicly open
airports can and do make profits,

And how many of our Republican rec.aviation.owning pilots fly
exclusively into and out of airfields that are built and operated
without government subsidy, huh? Would there be such a market for GA
without thousands of subsidized airports to fly into and out of? Could
buddies' farm patches really sustain this industry that we depend on?

That said, this wouldn't be enough to make me a Democrat if I weren't
already one though. I just wouldn't fool myself into thinking that I'm
not being a hypocrite by partaking of such massive government subsidy
and support while proclaiming that we need less government.


Seriously, I think the 'massive' part of the subsidy is really related to
the national and major carriers.

I disagree. I do agree that the national and major carriers are
subsidized, but so is GA if not more so on proportional basis. After
all, the national carriers pay ticket taxes and rent to airport
authorities and landing fees that GA generally doesn't pay. I would
gess that less than 10% of the airports in this country that are
federally subsidized will ever see a major commercial carrier land there.

Don't blame me for using class B radar
service.

Do you get weather briefings? Do you use radio navaids? Do you listen
to AWOS/ASOS broadcasts? Do you receive GPS signals, or have equipment
that reads GPS databases which are based on data that the U.S. Govt
provides free of charge to equipment manufacturers? Do you buy
navigation charts for a whole lot less than it costs to compile and
maintain them? Etc. etc.

At any rate GA is one of very many issues I base my vote on, and it's
not even in the top 10 of importance.

I have to agree with you on national offices. However, local candidates had
better pay attention to GA issues if they want my support.

On this we clearly agree.

In '68 (not '72) public sentiment was divided.

Probably: by '72 it wasn't. You had a few hardasses and Birchers and
whatnot and everyone else was for getting out. I grew up in a
middle-sized town and one that was overwhelmingly 'AuH2064':yet even
the rednecks had serious questions by '72. Men in uniform-and even
then, although it was understood they were noncombatants, the
occasional female-were certainly not disrespectfully treated, but it
was expressed that we hoped the war would be over shortly -either way.


Bush got his training
slot when production for UPT was as high as it had been historically
since WW II. UPT was expanding from eight to eleven bases and capacity
at each site was increased. We were up to more than 5000 per year
input to UPT from all sources. (I was director of ATC Student Officer
Rated Assignments from 1970 to April 1972 and managing the program.)





My Presidential vote isn't going to count anyway since my state is
not remotely up for grabs and it's a winner-take-all state.

Since 48 out of 50 states are "winner-take-all" Electoral College
votes, your reasoning should get everyone to give up voting.

It would seem to this political scientist (BS, MPS, MSIR) that the
closeness of the last election in so many states would indicate that
the value of every citizen's vote is critically important.

Ours wasn't close. And this one will unquestionably be farther
apart-Kerry will do worse than Gore.


They both suck. If I voted on pure principle I couldn't even vote
Libertarian-although they're closer. Kerry might really screw things
up so bad people would have to pull their heads out and in the long
run, like a dope bust,it might be beneficial for an addict.

If you can't differentiate between the basic ideological positions of
the two parties, you shouldn't vote. Good choice.


I am aware of what their platforms say. I concede some may consider
them fundamentally different. I consider them basically similar in
that they both seek to encode their politicoreligious notions in the
law. In one case it's a recognized religion, the other is an implicit
one. In practice, they differ only by amount, not by real principle.


Dr. Joe Bagadonutz, the wealthy proctologist buys a Mustang or even
a
MiG-17 and successfully takes off and lands. He isn't, by any stretch
of the imagination, a fighter pilot. He isn't really, even that
lesser
level, a pilot who flies fighters. He's simply an accident waiting to
happen.

He's equally likely to kill himself in a Bonanza for that matter.

The initial post was about flying "fighters". Yes, Bonanzas are
notorious for applying the principles of Darwin to doctors.

Actually some doctors are pretty good, even excellent, aviators.
Several aerobatic champions have been doctors. Same with other
professions. It is possible to become an excellent stick and rudder
pilot through civilian training if you have the time, money, and
drive. About the only thing you won't be able to learn as a civilian
is weapons delivery.


The phrase far predates that book. It was the grinder call in the 50s
era USAF and I can remember my uncle-who went through the air cadet
program in the 50s-talking about it. Hated the culture of USAF where
Fighter Pilots were gods-he was a C-133/C-130 pilot who dropped dead
six weeks after retiring from TWA at 60 as a four striper.

With all due respect to your uncle, we never won a war by hauling
more
trash than the enemy. Trash haulers help, but only because they
provide the warriors at the pointy end of the spear with the bombs,
beans and bullets to kill the enemy.

He was no fighter pilot, but he was a good guy and he's missed. He'd
planned to get involved in the EAA Young Eagles program and had signed
up for a soaring rating when he dropped dead-not a heart attack per se
but an electrochemical heart problem. The ambulance got there five
minutes too late but the doctors said he might have been
brain-impaired anyway, so "maybe it was for the best."


Haven't seen Mason't book, but if he thinks the "Tiger" attitude got
replaced by something less, he's sadly mistaken. Warriors are
professionals, but they'd better have a healthy dose of attitude.


Mason's book-wriitten for young adults (young male adults-it was
fifteen years before females wore USAF wings)-portrays the USAF air
cadet programs as basically unalloyed aggressiveness designed to crank
out winning fighter jocks-at the expense of a certain casualty rate,
and notwithstanding that most grads went to tankers, transports,
bombers, helos, or ocasionally directly to IP school. As I remember
the big change_according to Mason_ was that flight training "later on"
took in people who were already officers, not needing the boot camp
mentality, and was vastly less tolerant of accidents. Also the T-38
Talon was a big challenge for people whose total experience consisted
of under 200 hours in the T-37.

This agrees with accounts of flight training by many other writers,
including Richard Bach and several of the early astronauts, who went
through 50s era USAF flight training.

Bottom line as far as politics- I personally don't like Bush, right
or wrong, and I can't support a Kennedy, which Kerry as well may be,
nor would I vote for someone that liberal even if he is an active
pilot. (In general I tend to prefer Reps to Dems, provided they are
not so fundamentalist they can't separate church from state.) I don't
agreee with everything John McCain says but I'd work for his election
over Kerry. Voting third party expresses my dissatisfaction, and if it
clearly throws the election either way so much the better.

"Dude" wrote in message
...
If he gets fooled by the Bush administration, should we let him represent
us
in dealings with truly professional diplomats and world leaders?


Exactly the point. That is why you won't see Kerry going around saying that
Bush is stupid and why he probably wishes his 'supporters' would stop saying
it, too.

Sam Byrams wrote:

[Mason's book claims] the T-38 Talon was a big challenge for people
whose total experience consisted of under 200 hours in the T-37.

In the mid and late 60's it would have been less than 100 hrs in the
Tweet for studs transitioning to the Talon, and nobody didn't like the T-38.


Jack

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:40:29 -0500, Jack
wrote:

Sam Byrams wrote:

[Mason's book claims] the T-38 Talon was a big challenge for people
whose total experience consisted of under 200 hours in the T-37.

In the mid and late 60's it would have been less than 100 hrs in the
Tweet for studs transitioning to the Talon, and nobody didn't like the T-38.


You've got that right. I had 132 hours in Tweets before Talons. The
UPT syllabus dropped that to 120 with introduction of the T-41
screening. No problems. Later with better simulators the total UPT
syllabus was reduced to 188 hours with less than half of that coming
prior to T-38 qualification.

The T-38 has been a great airplane for 42 years of training and with
the upgraded glass cockpit looks like it will be active in SUPT for
another 20 years at least.

Easy to fly, no adverse characteristics. Reliable. I wound up with
about 1500 hours in Talons, more than 1200 accrued as an instructor in
Fighter Lead-In teaching new instructor candidates. (And taking the
occasional recreational trip to ski in CO/UT, visit the sea-food
paradises of FL or the sexpots of LSV.)


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Okay, so we will stick to the national issues and drop the developer issue.
We both agree that the local pols are bought and paid for by whichever
party. In my opinion, this is the biggest political issue for pilots by
far. The national stuff just doesn't seem to be fixable through voting.

After writing my response, I am coming back to the top here to perhaps save
you time, and because I realize a key point. We are mostly in disagreement
based on my belief that you cannot fairly account a pro rata share to GA
users because most of what we use is forced on us due to the needs of other
users of the airspace. Since we are being accepted into the airspace as
secondary users, it is only appropriate that the accounting of costs keep
this in mind.

You can read the rest to get an idea what I mean, but we cannot have a
fruitful discussion without a mutual understanding of this concept.


I think its not the wealth, but the amount of independence and self
determination that skews this group towards Conservative and Libertarian
beliefs.

There's that denial again. Given how much our government actively spends
and regulates to make GA as we know it possible, and given how heavily
GA pilots depend on government services and subsidies, it's just
laughable to say that GA pilots' Republican leaning comes from being a
more independent and self-determining group. Pilots are a wealthier
group who use their wealth to buy themselves some measure of
independence and self-determination, not to mention influence over how
government policies and spending are carried out to their benefit. But
we are no more independent and self-determining than the farmers who
collect their subsidy and price support checks and benefit from
market-limiting laws while calling themselves independent and
self-determining.

(and I will resist going into how silly it is to say that Republicans
are more self-determining, given their party's views on social issues
and regulation of private, personal behavior).

Pardon my overzealous snip, but...

It's not denial, its a disagreement on what the real costs are that are
PROPERLY attributal to GA. Your statement as "how we know it" is quite
telling. How we know it is as a system within a system that is preferential
to other users. Not as a system that treats each user as an equal.
Seriously, make a list of all the items and services that you do not pay for
that would not be there except for GA (No class B space, fewre towers,
smaller runways, less jetways, less need for Class A services, less need for
radar coverage at all, reduced frequencies, reduced radio coverage, etc.) .
Now, add the MARGINAL costs of your VOLUNTARY use of other services
(weather, IFR service, etc.). Unfortunately, government accounting will not
let you come close to figuring this out, but take an honest SWAG. If you
are a VFR pilot, you use almost ZERO other than weather. I would be happy
to have weather privatized (please no stones) as it can be had pretty
cheaply. Much of what we use as GA is a must have for military and
commercial flight. It's not fair, under the current preferential
environment to account to GA a prorata share. Period. I will not change my
mind until someone comes up with some numbers that do not represent the cost
of keeping me out of the way of Delta's airplanes.

Since you did not resist telling us about self determmination... throwing in
social issues is a straw dog, especially since I said that the people here
leaned conservative AND libertarian BECAUSE of those traits. Obviously, us
Libertarians's are all about self determination and independence. I think
you have different meanings in mind than I do for those words.

Besides, BOTH parties are now in a race to legislate values, and the left is
winning due to control of the courts.

Wow, that was a lot.



but the reality is that
GA is a pretty heavily subsidized activity that we would not be able to
enjoy without significant government subsidy and intervention.

This is a whole nother ball of wax. Is it really denial? My position
is
that the only reason GA is dependent on the government is government
control
and interference put in place to favor the airlines. If our airspace
were
more like our highways (idiotic HOV lanes aside),

Driving on highways? Well, there's another heavily subsidized activity,
and using that as a model does not do much to make your case that GA
could be successful without govt subsidy.

My understanding is that the transportation fund is kept in surplus to help
balance the budget. At any rate, the transportation system could easily be
self sufficient if it is not already, simply by curbing pork transportation
projects in favor of needed ones. This being a side issue, I doubt either
of us is running to find the numbers.

You can fly a piper cub off your farm to your
friend's farm at no cost to anyone else. Privately owned and publicly
open
airports can and do make profits,

And how many of our Republican rec.aviation.owning pilots fly
exclusively into and out of airfields that are built and operated
without government subsidy, huh? Would there be such a market for GA
without thousands of subsidized airports to fly into and out of? Could
buddies' farm patches really sustain this industry that we depend on?


HA! I got you! You assume that those airports only exist due to subsidy.
However, small privately owned, public use airports are common. It is only
government interference and subsidized fields that compete for the business
that keep more private fields from being in existance. At any rate, if
properly managed, these airports are self sufficient. Otherwise, there
would not be any private, for profit, airports would there?

That said, this wouldn't be enough to make me a Democrat if I weren't
already one though. I just wouldn't fool myself into thinking that I'm
not being a hypocrite by partaking of such massive government subsidy
and support while proclaiming that we need less government.


Seriously, I think the 'massive' part of the subsidy is really related
to
the national and major carriers.

I disagree. I do agree that the national and major carriers are
subsidized, but so is GA if not more so on proportional basis. After
all, the national carriers pay ticket taxes and rent to airport
authorities and landing fees that GA generally doesn't pay. I would
gess that less than 10% of the airports in this country that are
federally subsidized will ever see a major commercial carrier land there.


So we are guessing differently, that is fair enough. Lets look at some of
the examples.


Don't blame me for using class B radar
service.

Do you get weather briefings?

Yes, but I can get much of that info free, or for a small charge. My use of
the system is more often than not due to a need to avoid weather AND
controlled air space. If it was not available, I might cancel a couple more
flights a year. I would be willing to pay a fee for it - now that it is
voluntary.

Do you use radio navaids?

Yes, when I am not allowed to fly direct. Get rid of the airspace controls,
and you can get rid of the navaids in my opinion. I am likely in the
minority here. I also use them for training, ad for IFR. I would be
curious what the costs of maintaining the VOR system is. Private airports
do pay for some or all of the costs of NDB and ILS.

Do you listen
to AWOS/ASOS broadcasts?

I heard about a local municipal airport that didn't have the budget for a
new unit. Some local pilots simply pulled out their checkbooks when the
council was finally cornered into admitting the amount. The city refused do
to legal concerns, and later came up with the funds. These are worthwhile,
but once again, private airports have them, and I don't think the Feds are
paying for them.


Do you receive GPS signals, or have equipment
that reads GPS databases which are based on data that the U.S. Govt
provides free of charge to equipment manufacturers? Do you buy
navigation charts for a whole lot less than it costs to compile and
maintain them? Etc. etc.

An interesting question, and one worth looking into. How often do we REALLY
need new charts and updates? How accurate do GA pilots REALLY need them to
be? These costs are skewed by decisions made based on the needs of
commercial and military users. We are getting a free ride, but we pay in
other ways than cash - we get less priority in the system. If you want to
charge a pro rata share to GA, then you should make a product that meets our
needs, and tell the other users that they can pay more, or get it privately.


At any rate GA is one of very many issues I base my vote on, and it's
not even in the top 10 of importance.

I have to agree with you on national offices. However, local candidates
had
better pay attention to GA issues if they want my support.

On this we clearly agree.

In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:40:29 -0500, Jack
wrote:

Sam Byrams wrote:

[Mason's book claims] the T-38 Talon was a big challenge for people
whose total experience consisted of under 200 hours in the T-37.

In the mid and late 60's it would have been less than 100 hrs in the
Tweet for studs transitioning to the Talon, and nobody didn't like the T-38.


You've got that right. I had 132 hours in Tweets before Talons. The
UPT syllabus dropped that to 120 with introduction of the T-41
screening. No problems. Later with better simulators the total UPT
syllabus was reduced to 188 hours with less than half of that coming
prior to T-38 qualification.

The T-38 has been a great airplane for 42 years of training and with
the upgraded glass cockpit looks like it will be active in SUPT for
another 20 years at least.

Easy to fly, no adverse characteristics. Reliable. I wound up with
about 1500 hours in Talons, more than 1200 accrued as an instructor in
Fighter Lead-In teaching new instructor candidates. (And taking the
occasional recreational trip to ski in CO/UT, visit the sea-food
paradises of FL or the sexpots of LSV.)

Preceded you a little bit. Did the T-34, Tweet & T-bird. Old T-bird had
a lot of inertia with full tips and a lot of slack in the stick.

There was a noticeable drop in instrument skills and ability to handle
older aircraft when the all Tweet/Talon guys started coming out the end
of the pipeline. They were just TOO easy to fly.

Our T-34/Tweet instructors were "civilian" at least technically. Mine
was actually one of those much reviled in another tread TANG types, in
fact became GWB's commander in the Deuce.

My best friend, then and now was another instant airman to lieutenant
guardsmen. A second guard classmate went on to command his state guard
with 2 stars on his shoulders. None of us saw Vietnam. All 3 of us
managed 30+ years of airline.

Beats working for a living.

--
Ron Parsons

What's this? a politcal rebuttal that is informed and well thought out
and not full of flames? What the heck happened to the usenet I've come
to know? Seriously, nice work Dude.

I agree that what you have written below is the crux of our disagreement
on this issue. You feel that GA would have flourished if left to its
own devices and that the infrastructure that we now use is more an
imposition to please the big lines than an essential part of our GA
experience. I believe that GA would never have been as widespread or as
successful as it is if it didn't have all that infrastructure to get a
relatively free ride off of. Fair enough, we just see it differently.

And we both agree on politicans of both parties at the local level being
bought and owned by development interests


Dude wrote:

After writing my response, I am coming back to the top here to perhaps save
you time, and because I realize a key point. We are mostly in disagreement
based on my belief that you cannot fairly account a pro rata share to GA
users because most of what we use is forced on us due to the needs of other
users of the airspace. Since we are being accepted into the airspace as
secondary users, it is only appropriate that the accounting of costs keep
this in mind.