Bill introduced to stop airports from using ADSB to bill pilots

Anthem said:
dont know and dont care. . but it does seem to point out and confirm that people fail to do the most basic and mundate of searches to find said information and claim wild and untrue statements. .. which are then found and refuted with the most basic of searches.

perhaps instead of making all sorts of excuses, a retraction that that last statement made is/was false would be in order. and its super ironic that what we are talking about is people making statements that these things dont exist, cant be found, and are unavailable - but a real basic search using something as simple as google - finds such statements to be untrue. I mean this just reinforced what was said earlier - that this stuff isnt hard to find. Its lack of effort. Is this an inability, lack of ability, cant, wont, or whatever else. Isnt this the exact point we're trying to make here ?
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So the fact that I DID indeed look for information on Vector a couple of months ago, and CONFIRMED they did not list their client airports is meaningless to you. Oh well.

You also seem to ignore the facts that fee information is not easily searchable by airport. There is no universal way to determine the fees you may encounter at any given airport. You have to go on an airport by airport basis and search and call FBOs, and even then may not get the full story. I've had it happen to me, where the fee quoted over the phone was not the total fees. Seems to depend on who you talk to.
 
Anthem said:
dont know and dont care. . but it does seem to point out and confirm that people fail to do the most basic and mundate of searches to find said information and claim wild and untrue statements. .. which are then found and refuted with the most basic of searches.

perhaps instead of making all sorts of excuses, a retraction that that last statement made is/was false would be in order. and its super ironic that what we are talking about is people making statements that these things dont exist, cant be found, and are unavailable - but a real basic search using something as simple as google - finds such statements to be untrue. I mean this just reinforced what was said earlier - that this stuff isnt hard to find. Its lack of effort. Is this an inability, lack of ability, cant, wont, or whatever else. Isnt this the exact point we're trying to make here ?
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And when the next company comes along, you going to check every companies website to find out if they are charging fees for the airport you are going to? Nobody in their right mind would think this is a good thing.
 
I'm in favor of the bill but I think the real problem is how landing fees are currently done.

If they're going to assess fees that are automatically owed simply because you landed it should be required that those fees are posted on some kind of official website. Something that can be loaded into a Foreflight or other EFB feed/websites/etc and is binding. Right now the only thing you can do is call the FBO and hope someone who knows the fees or where to look them up is available to answer the phone. That's not good enough and never should have been allowed. It's the equivalent to puling into a parking lot with no signage/indication of fees and being told you now owe them money- any reasonable person would be outraged by that. And yes I'm aware there are some websites that list these things and sometimes you see stuff in the comments on foreflight but none of that is remotely accurate nor is it in any way binding.

Note: I'm not including things like parking/other fees for services in that although it would be nice if they were listed. If I find out about some fee after landing and have the option of leaving without owing anything that's different. I'm specifically talking about fees you can incur simply by landing.
 
timing is everything... and also is something that some people seem to ignore.
 
M20K said:
VERY unlikely it is fraudulent. Sure, dumb error as they're cranking out massive invoices with very little cross checking. Probably not unlike thousands of other businesses out there. If you get a bogus charge, notify them. I have not heard of anyone having an issue shooting them an email or calling.

And yes it's a pain and if they started really messing up and sending me one a week or something, I'd probably send them an invoice for my time to make a point. :cool: But I don't see it as any different than calling your credit card company when there is a charge you didn't make on your card... And THAT probably is fraud! But either way, it gets taken away and you never pay it.

And I'm curious.... Ever get on a road that was marked "Toll" and wondered why you had to pay??? :p (Sorry, I couldn't resist and all in fun. :D)
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I have, and I spent hours arguing with them. I eventually got a lawyer friend to write a letter for me which included a small claims reference. That was when they stopped.

Tim
 
Anthem said:
so if everything was transparent and they just billed through - you are fine with it ? Or if it has to be loaded somehow to EFB's - that consittues proper notice ? Im sure some here would still have issue because they dont run an EFB that can do that. Or they dont subscribe to a data service that does that, or they run something that doesnt have that feature. Also, I think you are conflating two different issues. Could things be more "transparent" - absolutely. But it isnt that hard at the moment. Just people are unwilling to do the most basic of searches and/or follow up. Things were more difficult years ago than now.

the real issue is landing fees. I'm actually all for abolishing landing fees. . I would fully support that bill. I think this is just a half assed, idiotic thing that just makes it look like they are doing a good thing - political grandstanding. The reality is that they have no interest in ever getting rid of landing fees. And if its an inability to use adsb, then we are just going to go back to using photocamers - which again, vector used to do anyhow.
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I'd prefer not to have landing fees at all, obviously. Having to call an FBO is inconvenient and annoying but beyond that... say I'm on a long cross country flight and some weather moves in ahead that requires me to divert. How do I determine which airports have a landing fee from the air? I'm probably not going to be able to make a phone call. I don't think I can call flight service or ATC and get that information either. So that's the fundamental argument as to why they shouldn't be able to do this- not enough reasonable notice.

Now to be fully transparent on my part, I probably don't pay fees beyond fuel and (rarely) parking more than once or twice a year if that. So it's more of a principal of the thing issue than practical in my case. Realistically what I'm going to do if that information was listed in my EFB is just avoid airports with landing fees. I suspect that's one of the reasons FBOs aren't listing that information in a simple accessible way in the first place.
 
The argument the sponsors of the bill make is that because ADSB data is being used for purposes the FAA said it would not—billing and enforcement—pilots are opting not to use it (within regs or not) and therefore the safety benefits we could accrue are missed. There is a moral hazard that ADSB offers to use it for non-intended purposes, and they are trying to remove that moral hazard. That argument transcends whether fees are fair, made public, etc.
 
Anthem said:
The faa never said it would not be used for billing or commercial processes. It also never made any promises that it would not be used as a reason for enforcement. Though it hasn’t used it as the initial or primary to start an enforcement action. A lot of people are throwing out what /they/ think the faa has agreed to - which aopa is also lobbying for. But the reality is that they said it would enhance safety and that’s why. But they didn’t ever say what they or others would use it or not use it for.
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Granted for the purpose of discussion (i have no idea what the faa did or did not say), but is that relevant? That is the problem the bill is trying to fix— that safety is compromised by those activities.
 
Iflydogs said:
The argument the sponsors of the bill make is that because ADSB data is being used for purposes the FAA said it would not—billing and enforcement—pilots are opting not to use it (within regs or not) and therefore the safety benefits we could accrue are missed. There is a moral hazard that ADSB offers to use it for non-intended purposes, and they are trying to remove that moral hazard. That argument transcends whether fees are fair, made public, etc.
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That's a well reasoned point. But I think we are fully into the "arguing for the sake of argument" phase of this thread.
 
Anthem said:
The bill isn’t really “fixing” anything. Safety isn’t compromised with it being present or not present. Unless you are trying to come up with a justification for people determined to not follow regs. For those people advocating turning off Adsb (which is against regs) - I would advocate the faa prosecuting to the fullest extent. Hell if I knew someone was playing stupid games and trying to win stupid prizes, I’d even report it.



Awwwww. Is this discussion beyond your education level ? Yeah it’s always people who don’t have a clue or able to contribute to a discussion who usually relegate themselves to asinine comments that aren’t true or have any relevance. You were the little kid who used to call people names when the discussion went beyond your ability to comprehend, right ?
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Your apparent glee over paying landing fees and ad hom attacks do make his theory not completely out of the blue.
 
Anthem said:
Your apparent assumptions (what’s that saying about assuming) is laughable. I’ve stated multiple times - attack the source. I’m against landing fees. While I don’t like vector per se - I think these political groups (aopa is a political group) is not addressing the cause. People and these groups are too chicken sh*T to address the real problem - landing fees. Ban them. Im all in support of that. I have zero stake in vector. But plenty of people make money via adsb - think flight aware, flughtradar24 and others. Landing fees have been around for decades - no one likes paying them. Just because I question this as barking up the wrong tree doesn’t mean I don’t support it.

The reality is I think aopa is taking credit for trying to introduce this legislation with the full realization that it is going to fail. It just makes it look like they are supporting GA and doing this makes them looking good. Cmon if you truly believe this is going to pass - there are bridges for sale.
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I honestly took it at face value and never even considered it was a ploy. There are 3 US senators supporting it, i may be naive but that means something to me; I respect those men. So this entire thing is a ploy by AOPA to Manichean ends? I am sad.
 
EdFred said:
Interesting. I just looked up in the "OFFICIAL" Chart supplement at the last few airports I got landing fees at. None are listed as having fees, but I still got them. Guess official ain't official.
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Perhaps a better legislation would require airports charging fees to provide current information to the FAA for inclusion in the chart supplement, otherwise the fees are invalid.

Nobody likes paying landing fees, but it's certainly a property owner's right to charge fees for use of his property. However, I don't think the law allows, say, an amusement park to invite people in and inform them of the entry price only after they're inside.
 
Anthem said:
The faa never said it would not be used for billing or commercial processes. It also never made any promises that it would not be used as a reason for enforcement. Though it hasn’t used it as the initial or primary to start an enforcement action. A lot of people are throwing out what /they/ think the faa has agreed to - which aopa is also lobbying for. But the reality is that they said it would enhance safety and that’s why. But they didn’t ever say what they or others would use it or not use it for.
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Incorrect. The FAA did state that. That was a pre-condition to getting NBAA and AOPA onboard with the ADS-B program. Before that FAA commitment, both organizations were very much against it.
This was in the AOPA and NBAA mags a number of times as members asked why those organizations stopped pushing against the ADS-B concepts.

Tim
 
But it seems Vector is using the data to initiate and enforce a billing process.
 
I also remember when the automobile seat belt law was passed, and how drivers and their representative organizations were similarly assured that no police officer would initiate a traffic stop solely as a result of the new seat belt law. Now we have illuminated message boards telling us “click it or ticket” as we ride along. There is nothing less trustworthy than government except government and its fee paying contractors presented with an easy way to extract our money.
 
Anthem said:
Let’s see the statement… we are in the internet age now - if it happened, just post it here. I do remember those adsb discussions with the nbaa. The nbaa at the time - was more concerned about privacy and got the PiA as part of that. I also remember discussion about how the faa wasn’t going to use it to “initiate” any enforcement action but it was and can be used to corroborate or backup reports/brashers/etc for enforcement. Now whether they actually do so - no clue. But it doesn’t seem like they have reviewed adsb data to actually initiate an enforcement action, but have used it to substantiate, prove or whatever else that something happened.

So a lot of editors have paraphrased things that were said or not said. But my understanding of that was that it was carefully notated that they wouldn’t use it to INITIATE enforcement action but not to never use it for any such enforcement actions. Sort of like the “probable cause” doctrine type of thing. But I’m sure people in this space and otherwise read in to it what they want.

And let me ask you this - if this so goes against what the faa promised the nbaa - why aren’t they up in arms over it. Why haven’t they stood firmly behind the bill and sent out prompts for their members to get behind it ? Their benefit far exceeds the much smaller amounts with the smaller GA crowd. Wouldn’t they be much greater beneficiaries of something like this ? They have been conspicuously silent on the matter.
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Second paragraph for example: https://www.globalair.com/articles/...-ads-b-data-for-lawsuits-landing-fees?id=8598

There are many others.

Tim
 
Anthem said:
These are all “recollections” or what they think was said or agreed to back then. Give something from before the adsb mandate was put in - they they stated. This is from 2025. And pre adsb wasn’t that far back ago. Of course they are going to say that now about what happened back then.
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So the AOPA rep is a liar. Is that what you are saying?
 
I've always been of the opinion that if landing fees are being charged they shoukd be collected when you are there. That way there is no disputing the fact that your plane is actually there and subject to the fees. If I land at an airport with a landing fee, I fully expect that I will have to pay it before I leave. I've never felt like a public use airport should be charging fees for touch and gos, so I will continue to ignore those anyway.
 
Anthem said:
These are all “recollections” or what they think was said or agreed to back then. Give something from before the adsb mandate was put in - they they stated. This is from 2025. And pre adsb wasn’t that far back ago. Of course they are going to say that now about what happened back then.
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As @EdFred said, you are calling the AOPA rep a liar. Beyond that, this has shown up in many locations on the net. So the chances of veracity are fairly high.
If you want to spend a lot of time proving the AOPA representative is a liar, be my guest.

Tim
 
Anthem said:
Seriously - the internet never forgets.
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Seriously, the internet doesn't have everything. it's not an all-knowing repository of all that ever was.

My recollection of what someone said during a campaign speech isn't false if you can't locate a video of the speech somewhere in the bowels of the interweb archives.
 
Anthem said:
Seriously - the internet never forgets. If it has shown up many times and locations - then someone point one out BEFORE the entire adsb thing was passed…. Cmon guys. That stuff doesn’t go away. Don’t you think something as critical as an agreement not to use it for commercial uses or landing fees would be published many many times to sway adsb concerns ? But the only discussion is recently when they are attempting to massage the message to justify getting a bill introduced and doubtfully passed.

And let’s be real - the current ceo that you guys are quoting - Darren pleasance wasn’t even at aopa when this stuff went down. He was at Cisco and before that google. Nothing in the GA or faa space. He’s been with aopa a whopping 6 months…. Here is a LinkedIn profile of him (need to have LinkedIn) for those that don’t know his background.

www.linkedin.com

Darren Pleasance - Bend, Oregon, United States | Professional Profile | LinkedIn

Transforming businesses and helping individuals achieve their full potential are two of… · Experience: Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) · Location: Bend · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View Darren Pleasance’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1 billion members.
www.linkedin.com www.linkedin.com
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Not a question of forgetting, a question of finding it. This is not a case of me trying to prove something incorrect. It is you trying to prove the CEO is lying.

Tim
 

c6c1d90d3a6635eaf0d7ccc013d96f5f.jpg


From 2008.
 
Anthem said:
Let’s be clear. The current aopa president had zero standing or presence during the discussion back in the day. So everything he is saying is NOT from him.

But let’s be real - a ton of people have already been looking and trying. They haven’t found anything. I briefly looked as well. And of course - didn’t find anything. Probably because it just doesn’t exist.



Again - nothing in there says adsb cannot be used for commercial purposes. Not sure where you are reading that. They did implement PIA with the adsb mandate which nbaa was really on top of (privacy with registration) - which has been taken further recently. But this is even more nebulous in application than the aopa president is now saying was agreed to. And nothing in any reg says anything along those lines or when it passed. And if even using the “it will increase safety” doesn’t imply in any legal sense - that it will ONLY be used for safety.

Also keep in mind - adsb is the protocol, transmission, reception etc of said data. I’m not sure where vector or other third parties get their actual data - but it’s highly likely they have a contract with flight aware (or another adsb entity) which has their own adsb network that they built up themselves. And if that’s the case - the nebulousness of managing the protocol not being used gets even murkier as they wouldn’t even be using the adsb data from the faa. It’s like saying you can’t use tcpip for commercial purposes or something - totally understandable on their own network. But what if it isn’t ?
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With every post it seems more evident that you have a stake in this.

Using federally mandated safety equipment to bill people is evil. Don’t care if you don’t agree.
 
I am enjoying this conversation but I think it misses the point. Regardless of who said or committed to what, the argument for the bill is that pilots are avoiding use of ADSB due to privacy concerns related to billing and enforcement. We have seen some accidents, and some accidents avoided, due to the non-use and use of ADSB. So the question is, is the gain to billing companies and the FAA's enforcement elements worth the extra number of accidents? This is completely separate from who said what back in 2008.
 
Iflydogs said:
…Regardless of who said or committed to what, the argument for the bill is that pilots are avoiding use of ADSB due to privacy concerns related to billing and enforcement. ….
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How many folks equipped with ADSB Out are intentionally disabling it? In my plane, the transponder would have to be turned off for that to happen. Even then, I can still access ADSB In via portable to EFB.

But using ADSB for midair collision avoidance in the terminal phase of flight isn’t the best use of my visual scan.
 
TCABM said:
How many folks equipped with ADSB Out are intentionally disabling it? In my plane, the transponder would have to be turned off for that to happen. Even then, I can still access ADSB In via portable to EFB.

But using ADSB for midair collision avoidance in the terminal phase of flight isn’t the best use of my visual scan.
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Don't know how many are, but with a tail beacon and many others, if you don't turn the nav lights on, it doesn't work.
 
Mikey52 said:
Don't know how many are, but with a tail beacon and many others, if you don't turn the nav lights on, it doesn't work.
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Since ADSB Out is only required in rule airspace for eligible aircraft, there is an implication by the sponsors that pilots in rule airspace with eligible aircraft are intentionally violating 91.225 to avoid some type of enforcement action or billing by a third party.

Setting aside the 3P billing aspect (the company also uses cameras and other techniques to capture use), the logic that a pilot in rule airspace and with an eligible aircraft is going to violate 91.225 to avoid some kind of enforcement is kind of circular since it opens up another enforcement action anyways.

I get politicians are going to politic, but the argument that pilots are violating one CFR to avoid getting violated for a different CFR paints a really bad picture for GA, and big picture optics matter for GA.
 
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