FAA Section 804 Congressional Mandate - TRACON consolidation

[TangoWhiskey]

Received from Lifeline Pilots (part of the Air Care Alliance group, like Angel Flight). If you fly for a charitable organization, consider taking the survey so your voice can be heard.

FAA Section 804 Congressional Mandate

The FAA is currently studying the consolidation of regional TRACONs that are outdated, rather than upgarde them to NextGen ATS, in an effort to reduce costs. This would result in closure of area radar installations and transfer or loss of local personnel.

LifeLine Pilots has been identified as a "stakeholder" in this determination and as such, is seeking our input as to what effect it may have on our pilots.

In order to attempt to gain insight from our full membership, I am attaching a link to a poll that I ask for you to complete to help us gauge its impact on you as a pilot.

http://survey.constantcontact.com/poll/a07eav06c9mi8hskgop/start.html

Please take a quick moment and complete within the next 7 days so we may report back to the FAA with our results.

Most folks seem pretty reasonable:

 

[kkoran]

The 14% who said "As long as I get accurate data I don't care where it comes from or who I talk to" seem reasonable.

The 71% who said "I would be concerned, but would hold judgement until I experienced it" could be reasonable if they can articulate a rational concern based on an understanding of what the change would actually entail. Unfortunately, I think most of them chose that answer to be non committal.

 

[mkosmo]

Who would care where the physical TRACON is located? It's not like their radar sites are on top of the buildings. I'd argue there's less harm in consolidating TRACON than there was in consolidating FSS.

Approach controllers would still need to check out in the sectors they work, so what does it matter where their chair is?

 

[denverpilot]

We had this discussion when Chicago caught fire and a number of people screamed and hollered that backup facilities were "too hard" to build, and to put the controllers on a bus to a regional facility to keep things running temporarily, until the main facility could be repaired, was "impossible".

And now we see that consolidation and remoting the data streams isn't impossible at all.

Gee, what a surprise.

Next: Watch for outsourcing to LockMart. Or whoever. Politicians will love handing out juicy contracts to lobbyists for operating said "consolidated" TRACONs.

Let's not even point out the elephant in the room that upgrading all the TRACONs to support the creeping crud known as ADS-B is basically noted as being too expensive in this announcement. No. You don't say.

Either way, for or against, it's a masterful play for more money to do the same job. Either we "must" pay to consolidate because it's too expensive not to, or we "must" pay for everywhere to be upgraded. No mention of any option that doesn't include a massive new spending spree.

See how that tactic works? Pure genius.

 

[TangoWhiskey]

Nate, all this will mean is when somebody does something malicious, or a DR scenario truly plays out, a larger swath of airspace will be affected.