FAA must be embarrassed by their stupidity

LDJones

LDJones

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
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I got the following piece in my NAFI newsletter today:

"I planned an FAA Safety Team seminar on the subject of non-towered operations at towers closed by sequestration. The speakers listed would be FAA Safety Team members, local ATC controllers, and FSDO inspectors.

The document was released to 8,000-plus pilots in the Tampa Bay area by FAASafety.gov around April 1. On April 3, I got a phone call from FAA Safety Team management advising me to revise the notice and remove any mention of FAA involvement. I expressed my extreme displeasure with that direction, but I revised the notice. Two days later I got a call from the same manager telling me that FAA HQ wanted me to change the title and remove any mention of the word "sequestration." In addition, I was advised to not discuss budgetary items or sequestration with pilots.

I cannot detail here what I said to the manager because a censor would redact them. I refused to change the title. I also threatened to resign as a Lead Team Rep (been one for 25 years) because I will not let the FAA trample on my First Amendment rights. The manager asked me not to resign, especially when I told him the next call I was making would be to the media.

The FAA is not paying a penny for the countless hours I have devoted to the FAA Safety Program. I refuse to be intimidated by faceless Washington HQ types who cannot stand the heat brought on by their total disregard for aviation safety.
The title of the seminar was revised without me. It was held last week with 66 pilots attending. We discussed everything that the FAA told me not to discuss.

This attempt by FAA HQ to manage the story cannot be tolerated. That's why I am writing this letter.

Jack Tunstill"​
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I think the WSJ article describing how silly it is that a 4% FAA budget cut is affecting 40% of domestic airline flights, pretty well shows how well orchestrated the BS flowing from Washington is... FAA purposefully is choosing the worst possible places to pull that 4% from to make the pain to the public as high as it can possibly be. Professional management of a 4% budget cut in any other private company, would be "business as usual" the next day.
 
Funny how "going over the fiscal cliff" has been painless until the politicians made it pain full.
 
denverpilot said:
I think the WSJ article describing how silly it is that a 4% FAA budget cut is affecting 40% of domestic airline flights, pretty well shows how well orchestrated the BS flowing from Washington is... FAA purposefully is choosing the worst possible places to pull that 4% from to make the pain to the public as high as it can possibly be. Professional management of a 4% budget cut in any other private company, would be "business as usual" the next day.
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Anyone who COULDN'T cut 4% from their corporate department budget without noticeably affecting their clients would not be a position to make those decisions for much longer.
 
LDJones said:
Anyone who COULDN'T cut 4% from their corporate department budget without noticeably affecting their clients would not be a position to make those decisions for much longer.
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Exactly. So... how do we fire the FAA leadership again? Oh... wait... they're answering to the politicians...
 
denverpilot said:
Exactly. So... how do we fire the FAA leadership again? Oh... wait... they're answering to the politicians...
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The politician they are answering to lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Cheers
 
LDJones said:
Anyone who COULDN'T cut 4% from their corporate department budget without noticeably affecting their clients would not be a position to make those decisions for much longer.
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:yeahthat:


And as a further example of stupid decisions, DHS has cut 20% out of the Coast Guard's operational budget. :dunno:
 
Threefingeredjack said:
:yeahthat:

And as a further example of stupid decisions, DHS has cut 20% out of the Coast Guard's operational budget. :dunno:
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Because we know the most important functions of the coast guard are carried out by the administrative pencil-pushers, not the guys in the choppers and boats, right!?

:mad:
 
Threefingeredjack said:
:yeahthat:


And as a further example of stupid decisions, DHS has cut 20% out of the Coast Guard's operational budget. :dunno:
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A 20% cut out of a very small budget to begin with stings quite a bit.

The country would be far better served by taking the cuts out of the TSA!

I have long had my gripes with Uncle Sam's Confused Group, but at least they do provide a legitimate benefit and they do save people.

The TSA on the other hand is a self licking ice cream cone.
 
Fearless Tower said:
A 20% cut out of a very small budget to begin with stings quite a bit..
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Which begs the question: if sequestration is calling for 4-5% reduction, why is 20% being cut from delivery of their core services??
 
LDJones said:
Which begs the question: if sequestration is calling for 4-5% reduction, why is 20% being cut from delivery of their core services??
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Same reason as FAA... cut where it hurts the public... you know, the folks you're supposedly serving?... the most.

The DHS paper-pushers will not be cut.
 
P.S. Core services! BWAHAHAHA... you think ANY of these agencies cares about or plans anything around their CORE services, even in normal budget times? (Sorry, just realized that one was REALLY funny...) They're basically BONUSED on creating NEW and USELESS services, the way the budgets work. That's the only way to "grow" the agency, whatever agency it is.
 
They announced closure to towers that by-and-large would have little impact, and when they realized that it would have little impact, they delayed those closures, and now are causing the greatest amount of problems possible at the most active airports.

What a country! (with apologies to Yakov Smirnoff)
 
denverpilot said:
P.S. Core services! BWAHAHAHA... you think ANY of these agencies cares about or plans anything around their CORE services, even in normal budget times? (Sorry, just realized that one was REALLY funny...) They're basically BONUSED on creating NEW and USELESS services, the way the budgets work. That's the only way to "grow" the agency, whatever agency it is.
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That partially explains why the FAA's budget has doubled in the last ten years, but a 4% cut has to disrupt air travel. Spoiled children!
 
I actually wrote and cajoled politicians when they didn't have a permanent budget, to give them one... thought it was the right thing to do... realizing via MANY things since then, that was a mistake.
 
The 4% cut is based on the annual budget, right? Since we're over 50% of the way through the fiscal year, that means that we're talking about at least an 8% cut for the remainder of the year.
 
gprellwitz said:
The 4% cut is based on the annual budget, right? Since we're over 50% of the way through the fiscal year, that means that we're talking about at least an 8% cut for the remainder of the year.
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I don't believe that's the case, but even if it were the cuts should come first in areas not directly affecting the flying public. They'd probably make budget by just freezing NextGen.
 
Apparently one congressman blasted them for maintaining their own "air force" fleet of planes at a cost approaching the value of the ATC cuts.
 
gprellwitz said:
The 4% cut is based on the annual budget, right? Since we're over 50% of the way through the fiscal year, that means that we're talking about at least an 8% cut for the remainder of the year.
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True Grant, maybe even a little worse then that since the personnel cuts couldn't happen until the WARN notices had gone out.

If you were managing a department and knew there was a chance that you would only be allowed to spend a few percent more than you did last year rather than say 8% more would start the year out spending at the greater rate or might you tend to to not ramp up as much or even hold spending at last years level to see what was going to happen?
 
wsuffa said:
Apparently one congressman blasted them for maintaining their own "air force" fleet of planes at a cost approaching the value of the ATC cuts.
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I wonder how many of those are flight check aircraft.
 
While it seems simple to make cuts, we don't have all of the information. Are certain programs already paid for the year or are there penalties if the FAA pulls out of something? Nextgen sounds like a good program to cut but will the maintenance budget for the navaids not shut down cost more?
 
Politicians are not stupid. Cut the things the public sees. Generate sympathy. Generate a ground swell to recall Sequestration. And let's face it, the guy whose name is on a departmentl level budget is quite definitely a politician.
They should be working on passing a budget. Instead they are just playing games.
 
silver-eagle said:
Politicians are not stupid. Cut the things the public sees. Generate sympathy. Generate a ground swell to recall Sequestration. And let's face it, the guy whose name is on a departmentl level budget is quite definitely a politician.
They should be working on passing a budget. Instead they are just playing games.
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I think you nailed it. The FAA started with tower closures and since that didn't generate the outcry they hoped, that keeps getting pushed back. Now the focus is on the commercial airline delays.
 
denverpilot said:
I think the WSJ article describing how silly it is that a 4% FAA budget cut is affecting 40% of domestic airline flights, pretty well shows how well orchestrated the BS flowing from Washington is...
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Even if you make the most charitable possible assumption that a 4% cut really SHOULD affect 40% of domestic airline flights, the managers should still be sacked for creating a system that is so fault-intolerant.
 
Ken Ibold said:
Even if you make the most charitable possible assumption that a 4% cut really SHOULD affect 40% of domestic airline flights, the managers should still be sacked for creating a system that is so fault-intolerant.
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:yeahthat:
 
I remember a time when the FAA was a lot more personable and approachable, at least on the FSDO level. This was a time before 9/11 but immediately after that incident it seems that all government went into a phase of introversion, secrecy and rapid expansion. Our local FSDO moved to a new address in a building with bulletproof windows and an air lock entry. You had to have a confirmed appointment to even get in there to talk to anyone.

Seriously, I don't know exactly when it all really began, it certainly was way before February 2009 but now we have policemen in the streets with armored vehicles wearing cammo. Explain to me, why the hell are the police wearing cammo?:dunno:

Whatever is going on, it has gotten completely out of control.
 
Silvaire said:
Explain to me, why the hell are the police wearing cammo?:dunno:

Whatever is going on, it has gotten completely out of control.
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Ummm....to hide in bushes while hunting down domestic terrorists?! :dunno:
 
LDJones said:
Ummm....to hide in bushes while hunting down domestic terrorists?! :dunno:
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Except as we now found out, they can't even find those if they get their noses stuffed right into them by a foreign goverment.
 
Silvaire said:
I remember a time when the FAA was a lot more personable and approachable, at least on the FSDO level. This was a time before 9/11 but immediately after that incident it seems that all government went into a phase of introversion, secrecy and rapid expansion. Our local FSDO moved to a new address in a building with bulletproof windows and an air lock entry. You had to have a confirmed appointment to even get in there to talk to anyone.
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I was surprised to see that an FAA office at Salt Lake City Airport was blurred out on the Google Satellite photo! :rofl:
 
We are straining at gnats and swallowing camels. There is no way that voters will elect leaders who will make the difficult decisions necessary to balance the budget.

I believe that the President is going out of his way to try to elect a Democrat Congress so that we can get more things like Obamacare during his last 2 years. This Sequestration thing is just a little window dressing to have the politicians pretend to pay a little attention to the budget. I don't know what the answer is, we cannot keep spending without catastrophic consequences but we won't elect Ron Paul types who will do meaningful spending cuts.
 
Warrior said:
We are straining at gnats and swallowing camels. There is no way that voters will elect leaders who will make the difficult decisions necessary to balance the budget.

I believe that the President is going out of his way to try to elect a Democrat Congress so that we can get more things like Obamacare during his last 2 years. This Sequestration thing is just a little window dressing to have the politicians pretend to pay a little attention to the budget. I don't know what the answer is, we cannot keep spending without catastrophic consequences but we won't elect Ron Paul types who will do meaningful spending cuts.
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:thumbsup:
 
Too many posts to quote, but I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees these "dire flight delays" as a political move.
 
Well, you don't understand how sequestration works. The FAA is NOT a line item. There's limits to what can be moved around. Frankly, if I had the authority, the damned FAAST program would be the first I kill. It's a monumental amount of bureaucratic empire building expense for questionable safety impact. A few well placed volunteer coordinators that would pull together the only shinings stars, the volunteer counselors would cost 1/50th of what they are spending.

Of course, however, the FAA (and NATCA) is gaming the system* Always have, always will until we get some honorable and sober leadership back in the FAA which we've not had in a few decades.

Of course, they stumbled badly on their first attempt (lets close 200 towers) because by and large people said "FINE."
 
RotorAndWing said:
A large majority of them. If I was taking an educated guess I would say 80 percent.
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Pretty close. All but 10... 3 for transport, 7 for R&D...the rest flight inspection. OK, one of those flight check planes is a vintage DC-3...I guess they should just go ahead and scrap that now.

Of course if we shut down the flight inspection program, they'll have to "NA" ILS approaches and navaids eventually. If politicians think ATC staffing cuts hurt, wait until ORD is limited to only visual approaches.
 
RotorAndWing said:
A large majority of them. If I was taking an educated guess I would say 80 percent.
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Curious: If they grounded them, how many IAPs would have to be NOTAMed as NA because they hadn't had their required flight checks? They have to flight check IAPs periodically, don't they?
 
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