If user fees go into effect I'm done

Ps. While I am offending everyone, if user fees begin, a good
start would be to close down the FSS system COMPLETELY, and fire all
of the employees.

The system is useless, redundant with more modern methods, and would
remove an entire line item from the FAA budget, leaving them less
to bitch about. Not to mention letting the FAA know we are serious
about reducing the size of the FAA.

The FSS system should never have been privatized. It should have been
shut down completely.

Scott Moore

scott moore wrote:
The government appears to want to place US aviation in line with
that of other countries, such as in the EU. In the short run they may
not be able to do much, but in the long run they certainly can,
especially with a declining pilot population, which this will
accelerate.

I'll make a suggestion that I'm sure nobody here will like. If we are
able to tie any user fees that come about to actual services, the next
step is to STOP the creation of any new control towers on small
airports, then follow that up with getting RID of as many control
towers, and FAA personnel, as possible. With modern technology such
as ADS-B, there is less need for them, and getting rid of FAA personnel
is the natural answer to the whole user fee question.

The FAA themselves have floated the idea that even IFR might someday
be uncontrolled. Uncontrolled = no controller. Its both a "solution"
to the FAA's (imaginary) "controller private aircraft workload", and
a THREAT, to the FAA. Ie., if you want to move to a model of charging
us to use a controller, we will want to move to a model without
controllers.

Scott Moore

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

The ATC user fee issue is a corporate boondoggle like Boeing's recent
infamous proposal to lease a hundred B-757(?) tankers to the USAF.

Have a look at the future for some of us it is the present.

http://www.eurocontrol.int/crco/publ...ance_tool.html

scott moore wrote:
Ps. While I am offending everyone, if user fees begin, a good
start would be to close down the FSS system COMPLETELY, and fire all
of the employees.

The system is useless, redundant with more modern methods, and would
remove an entire line item from the FAA budget, leaving them less
to bitch about. Not to mention letting the FAA know we are serious
about reducing the size of the FAA.

For the most part, I agree.

About the only function of FSS that I use on a regular basis is flight
watch. I don't see any way to automate that. But, it certainly could be
centralized. I'm already talking to a person 100s of miles away; what
difference does it make where he's sitting? And what difference does it
make if he's sitting at a radio console in a building that says "FSS" on
the door or one that says "ATC" on the door?

Routine dissemination of weather information is better done by automated
methods. Likewise with filing of flight plans (VFR or IFR). Obtaining
clearances at uncontrolled airports via FSS is equally silly; they just act
as a telephone relay to ATT. The phone call could just as easily have been
switched to ATC directly.

Once in a while, I'll call FSS and ask for a phone briefing. Most commonly
these days, I'll do that on my cell phone in the car driving to the airport
because I was to busy to get a DUATS briefing before I left. While I'll
miss that convenience, I can't see any way I can justify the cost to the
federal government of having a person read me stuff on the phone that I
could have just as easily read myself on DUATS had I been a little more
organized or a little less lazy.

While I'll
miss that convenience, I can't see any way I can justify the cost to the
federal government of having a person read me stuff on the phone that I
could have just as easily read myself on DUATS had I been a little more
organized or a little less lazy.

Actually, I find an advantage to it. If you get NOTAMS, you will (by
yourself) be presented with reams of irrelevant stuff, but you don't
know what's irrelevant until you read through it. Ditto text weather at
fifteen stations near you, near your destination, enroute, etc. A
briefer who has seen all this stuff all day can sift through junk and
pick out the important pieces. That is valuable.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

In article ,
Jose wrote:

While I'll
miss that convenience, I can't see any way I can justify the cost to the
federal government of having a person read me stuff on the phone that I
could have just as easily read myself on DUATS had I been a little more
organized or a little less lazy.

Actually, I find an advantage to it. If you get NOTAMS, you will (by
yourself) be presented with reams of irrelevant stuff, but you don't
know what's irrelevant until you read through it. Ditto text weather at
fifteen stations near you, near your destination, enroute, etc. A
briefer who has seen all this stuff all day can sift through junk and
pick out the important pieces. That is valuable.

Jose

I've also had briefers filter out stuff that was important to me. I'd
rather look at it all and decide what's important and what's not.

A classic example happened to me about a year ago. I got a duats briefing
and saw that R-5206 was hot by notam. This is a small restricted area near
West Point, NY. It's maybe 15 miles from HPN.

I was flying with a student and asked him to brief me. He gave me a good
rundown on the weather, but omitted to tell me about R-5206. I asked him
how he got his information, and he said he called FSS. I made him do it
again. He came back and said I was wrong, R-5206 was not hot. So, we
called FSS a third time and put it on speaker. My student asked for a
briefing for a 25 mile radius of HPN, and sure enough, the briefer said
nothing about R-5206. I then explicitly asked him about it, and he said
that it was indeed hot. So, what's going on here?

It turns out that R-5206 gets it's notams filed under IGN, which itself is
more than 25 miles from HPN. So, it didn't come up in the briefers 25 mile
filter. I just routinely ask duats for a 50 mile radius, so it comes up.

With DUATS, I know how to ask for exactly what I want, and how to filter
it. With a human briefer, I have to rely on the judgement of somebody I've
never met to pick and choose, and sometimes I have to play 20 questions
with him. I'll take the computer any day.

Why briefers think I care about an unlit crane 240 feet AGL 4 miles from
the runway, on a day VFR flight, I have no idea.

"Chris" wrote in news:535rlaF1qs7rdU1
@mid.individual.net:

Have a look at the future for some of us it is the present.

http://www.eurocontrol.int/crco/publ...ance_tool.html

It looks like aircraft weighing less than 2 tons are exempt. I believe that
would pretty much cover all single engine pistons.

Hopefully that will be the same approach that they come up with here...

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...

About the only function of FSS that I use on a regular basis is flight
watch. I don't see any way to automate that.

I haven't used Flight Watch in 3-4 years, since I got XM Wx in my airplane.
So it is automated that way. However, if that equipment breaks.....

http://www.eurocontrol.int/crco/publ...ance_tool.html
It looks like aircraft weighing less than 2 tons are exempt. I believe that
would pretty much cover all single engine pistons.

Hopefully that will be the same approach that they come up with here...

Behind that nose is a very large camel.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Roy Smith wrote in
:

With DUATS, I know how to ask for exactly what I want, and how to filter
it. With a human briefer, I have to rely on the judgement of somebody
I've never met to pick and choose, and sometimes I have to play 20
questions with him. I'll take the computer any day.

Why briefers think I care about an unlit crane 240 feet AGL 4 miles from
the runway, on a day VFR flight, I have no idea.

In today's world, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system could replace
the briefers, and you could still call for weather from your car. Instead
of talking to a briefer, you could dial or talk to the voice response
system and get appropriate responses. A small amount of additional
categorization of things like NOTAMS would also improve this issue and
wouldn't really take much.

For example, if they know my aircraft type is a BE35/R and I'm planned for
7000', why do they give me NOTAMS about STARs and DPs that are only
authorized for Jets or for flights planned for FL180 or higher? The answer,
obviously, is that these criteria are listed as "notes" printed on the
page, instead of in fields in the system. If they were fields in the
system, NOTAMs could be filtered better automatically, and the human factor
in weather briefing would be less critical...

But if they password protect it, I won't do it.
"Big Boy." "BIG BOY!"

Ps. While I am offending everyone, if user fees begin, a good
start would be to close down the FSS system COMPLETELY, and fire all
of the employees.

Whoo-wee, Scott -- and I thought *I* was the "King of Anti-Government
Rants" here.

You've really stepped in it now.

;-)

(And you are right on, BTW. Between my home PC, my office PC, and my
Garmin 496, I've got 500-times more -- and better -- weather at my
fingertips than any FSS briefer had until just a few years ago.)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"