Control Tower Closure Info

Well; DTN's contract tower just got "closed"!:mad2: Like everywhere else the Airport Manager has the week to plead our case to the FEDs (overhanging C required by Barksdale AFB (2 miles distant) and SHV (5 miles west).
In the notice I see language that stated that "even if the cut is not done at this time due to the Sequester it may be cut at a later date if other spending cuts make it nessessary...

For now they speak of closing 100 Contract Towers.

Our tower costs $400,000.00 per year and we are the largest GA airport in Louisiana. We beat our sister airport (SHV) by 13,000 movements last fiscal year.
So lets round it up by $100,000.00 and say each contract tower closed costs 500K to run. Times 100 towers. Thats 50 million to keep ALL the towers open.

Maybe we could ask the MB in Egypt that were just handed 250 Million USD yesterday for a loan to keep the our towers open...:dunno:


Jefferson said: "A Goverenment large enough to give you everything you want is large enough to take back everything they gave you."

Chris @ DTN
 
N801BH said:
Yup... ya gotta LOVE those guvmint employee unions..:mad::mad::mad2:
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The furlough notices were to be issued via email, every FAA employee has an email account. NATCA objected, demanded notification via Certified Mail, and got it. Signed for mine today.
 
roncachamp said:
The furlough notices were to be issued via email, every FAA employee has an email account. NATCA objected, demanded notification via Certified Mail, and got it. Signed for mine today.
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Don't you love unions. Furloughs required for lack of money and the union makes the agency (and taxpayers) paid the cost of certified mail. :confused:
 
Hiperbiper said:
Our tower costs $400,000.00 per year and we are the largest GA airport in Louisiana. We beat our sister airport (SHV) by 13,000 movements last fiscal year.
So lets round it up by $100,000.00 and say each contract tower closed costs 500K to run. Times 100 towers. Thats 50 million to keep ALL the towers open.
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The 2013 appropriation for the contract tower program is $140.3 million. Even at that, it's only 1% of the FAA's total budget.
 
N801BH said:
Don't assume all towers have radar service.... Even if the radar site is rotating and 300 feet from the tower......:mad2::mad2::mad:.

Jackson Hole is pictured here..... The tower has NO radar screen in the cab...... They were told by the airport board and director that a display is not needed,,, Instead they send the radar signal 220 miles away to SLC center..:dunno::dunno::rolleyes:... Go Figure...:mad2:.
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Well that's funky. Easton MD doesn't have radar on-field but the controller has Baltimore's radar in the cab. Or something like that. Opposite ish situation.
 
Palmpilot said:
Ronald Reagan was a union man.

The SAG has a stranglehold on all action in the film industry... Ya wanna be an actor... ya gotta join.... You want to pick up poop from a dog during the filming of ANY production... You gotta join the union......

Of course, that didn't stop him from enforcing the law!
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My gut feeling is Pres Reagan hated the union and when the time presented itself during the illegal PATCO strike, he was more then happy to trash the union.... And probably smiled for months after it too... :yes:;)
 
N801BH said:
The SAG has a stranglehold on all action in the film industry... Ya wanna be an actor... ya gotta join.... You want to pick up poop from a dog during the filming of ANY production... You gotta join the union......
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Which doesn't explain the fact that Reagan served as the president of SAG for seven years.

My gut feeling is Pres Reagan hated the union and when the time presented itself during the illegal PATCO strike, he was more then happy to trash the union.... And probably smiled for months after it too... :yes:;)
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Gut feelings are a dime a dozen.
 
roncachamp said:
By Reagan? They weren't thrown out, they walked out.
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Ok Smart a$$.. They did walk out ... against they oath they took... The big issue is they were NOT allowed back in..;):lol:...
Their choice............ and they screwed the pooch on that move...:yes:
 
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N801BH said:
Ok Smart a$$.. They did walk out ... against the oath they took... The big issue is the were NOT allowed back in..;):lol:...
Their choice............ and they screwed the pooch on that move...:yes:
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IIRC they WERE allowed back in, they were given a 48 hour window of opportunity to return.
 
N801BH said:
Jackson Hole is pictured here..... The tower has NO radar screen in the cab...... They were told by the airport board and director that a display is not needed,,, Instead they send the radar signal 220 miles away to SLC center..:dunno::dunno::rolleyes:... Go Figure...:mad2:.
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That's a beacon interrogator, secondary radar only. The shortest one I've ever seen and clearly quite poorly sited.
 
N801BH said:
Ok Smart a$$.. They did walk out ... against the oath they took... The big issue is the were NOT allowed back in..;):lol:...
Their choice............ and they screwed the pooch on that move...:yes:
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roncachamp said:
IIRC they WERE allowed back in, they were given a 48 hour window of opportunity to return.
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Precisely. They were warned they were violating the law, told they would be fired if they did not return to work, and the ones that didn't were fired.
 
N801BH said:
Tell that to the 11,345 controllers who were throw out on the a$$es ...;)
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Given his seven years as a union president, it makes no sense to ASSUME that the reason he did it was hatred of unions.
 
Palmpilot said:
Given his seven years as a union president, it makes no sense to ASSUME that the reason he did it was hatred of unions.
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It is my opinion and I am stickin with it sir......... Bottom line is controllers took an oath NOT to strike, the union got their rank and file all riled up like they usually operate. They gambled that the union was stronger that an oath they all swore to and to hell with all other American citizens........ Like the ol' saying........... Don't let the door hit you in the a$$ on the way out..:D


Looking at your sig line I see you are drinking the same kool aid as the ( you have to pass the bill to see what is in it) woman.;)
 
N801BH said:
It is my opinion and I am stickin with it sir.........
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And I'm sticking with mine.

Looking at your sig line I see you are drinking the same kool aid as the ( you have to pass the bill to see what is in it) woman.;)
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If I were drinking the same Kool-Aid as her, why would I be defending Reagan?
 
ColoPilot said:
I fly out of KBJC, which is on the list for tower closure and I'm not sure I will fly there with the tower closed. With the busy airspace and the amount of traffic, especially the jets, I don't know if it's worth the risk.

I know there are other airports with impending tower closures that are even busier (but BJC is the one I'm familiar with). What is everyone else who may be impacted by this going to do? Avoid the closed tower airports? Continue to fly to them? Wait and see how it works out?
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Sure, makes sense (not) that they would close it now.
Its been open a little over a year at a cost of 23.7 million.
http://jeffco.us/airport/airport_T38_R91.htm
How many others like it, I wonder.

George
 
If only there were some way for aircraft pilots to communicate and handle airport traffic flow amongst themselves....
 
Dave Krall CFII said:
If only there were some way for aircraft pilots to communicate and handle airport traffic flow amongst themselves....
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Sometimes it is not all that easy as we have seen in numerous threads about suggested pattern entries, overhead breaks, etc...
 
Dave Krall CFII said:
The ~8 airport TOWERS listed in WA State are all a phenomenal waste of tax money, let them all close.
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I think this is the real question not the 8 airport towers in a location being a waste, but where is the FAA wasting money. In my opinion what the FAA is trying to do is stir up enough public outcry that they get an exception or funding back into their institution. What they should be doing is determining how they could be more efficient and not the former. In turn we as the public should be demanding this from the FAA.

My argument would be that the FAA should be spending their time and efforts on making their controlled towers as cost efficient if not more so than the contracted towers. In general the contacted towers operate on 1/2 the number of employees and each employee costs significantly less. So for this simple case alone if the FAA was able to match the cost efficiency of the contract towers they would be able to open new towers and still end up with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

So my question to the FAA is why are you closing the more efficient towers instead of focusing on your own towers which run a much higher cost? My question to AOPA why aren't you bringing this to the medias attention or promoting other alternative solutions?

By the way the staffing and salary levels were compared on a tower by tower basis to those of similar demands. So a typical contract tower at a similar airport with similar traffic required about 50% less workers, and each worker cost 10-35% less than an FAA empolyee. My solution is layoff 25% of the FAA controllers and replace them with contract employees that run 10-35% cheaper as the short-term fix then work on making the FAA operations more cost effective.
 
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PilotAlan said:
Precisely. They were warned they were violating the law, told they would be fired if they did not return to work, and the ones that didn't were fired.
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They all signed the same paper I did when I started with federal government employment. If I struck against the government I would be fired. No surprise, and Reagan upheld the law. The only ones the PATCO controllers could blame was themselves.

Now, one of the towers in Washington state being closed is the one for KOLM, which serves the state capital. Oh, the humanity! :D
 
azure said:
+1

Apart from improving operations safety at crowded fields, if IFR I would MUCH rather go into a towered airport than one with no operating tower.

If conditions are VFR then it doesn't matter, I'll cancel in the air, but if a go-around would put me in the clouds, I'm keeping my IFR clearance all the way to the ground.

At home base (no tower), canceling IFR on the ground means pulling off the runway, shutting down the engine, and calling ATC on my cellphone.

I'd much rather let them do it for me -- and in exchange for that and other services, the "hassle" of talking to them on the radio is small potatoes.

Just MHO.
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+1 What he said
 
jpower said:
Well that's funky. Easton MD doesn't have radar on-field but the controller has Baltimore's radar in the cab. Or something like that. Opposite ish situation.
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Just because they have a DBRITE doesn't make it a radar tower.
 
Dave Krall CFII said:
If only there were some way for aircraft pilots to communicate and handle airport traffic flow amongst themselves....
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"Any traffic in the pattern please advise..."

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 
EdFred said:
Because people (especially politicians) never change their position on anything, ever. What shade of green is the sky in your world?
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Do you think it's impossible for a union man to believe that unions should obey the law?

Reagan's enforcement of the law could have been a principled stand, based on a belief that the law should be enforced, rather than who he was for or against.
 
Palmpilot said:
Do you think it's impossible for a union man to believe that unions should obey the law?

Reagan's enforcement of the law could have been a principled stand, based on a belief that the law should be enforced, rather than who he was for or against.
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I am not sure Reagan is the main topic here.............

The unions represent ALL their dues paying members..... The unions clearly know the rules and that ALL their members signed a document swearing they would NEVER strike....................

I guess the 50,000 dollar question is.........:dunno:

Why in the hell did the union sanction the illegal strike against the US government....:dunno::rolleyes:
 
N801BH said:
I guess the 50,000 dollar question is.........:dunno:

Why in the hell did the union sanction the illegal strike against the US government....:dunno::rolleyes:
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Because they truly didn't believe the world could continue to function without them, so they couldn't actually BE fired.

Just like many bureaucratic agencies today. Which brings it around 360* to the OP, where the FAA is threatening to close or cut back lots of towers, and the reaction from many of us is "meh".

And their greatest fear is (as expressed by some senior government executives) that the citizenry will realize that the government CAN be cut, and substantially, without significant impact.
 
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