Houston becoming like ORD and CVG in rerouting GA IFR

[wsuffa]

FDC 6/7590 ZHU FI/T EN ROUTE IFR AIRCRAFT TRANSITING
(OVER FLYING) AIRSPACE DELEGATED TO HOUSTON TRACON SHALL
BE LIMITED TO THE FOLLOWING ROUTES: (1) V306 AT OR BELOW 8,000
FEET, OR (2) V556 AT OR BELOW 8,000 FEET, OR (3) V70. ALL OTHER
AIRCRAFT SHALL BE ROUTED SO AS TO REMAIN CLEAR OF THE
LATERAL/VERTICAL LIMITS OF HOUSTON TRACON AIRSPACE. FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CALL 281-233-0510 OR 281-233-0530.

It used to be that a GA flight could take V198 directly East-West across the Houston Class B airspace at 16,000 or above. Under this NOTAM, you're looking at about a 50 mile detour around it. And you're looking at staying down low (I've V-306 at 12K in the past).

Same sort of thing happenend at Cincinnati. Same thing as C90, just make the GA traffic go around, regardless of cost.

AOPA is NOT supporting our efforts to keep costs down. Further, if increased gas taxes and user fees come to be, the cost will go even higher. AOPA, by supporting the T-Routes around Cincinnati is effectively supporting these kinds of moves. At least there was a comment period at Cincinnati.

Hey folks, we're getting locked out of more and more airspace.

 

[SkyHog]

AOPA will not fight anything unless the words "User Fees" are attached to it. If I hadn't forgotten I was on auto-renew, I would have already dumped AOPA.

 

[mikea]

What stops you from going VFR above the class B?

 

[SCCutler]

What stops you from going VFR above the class B?

IMC'd do it, wouldn't it?

---

This is chicken dirt.

 

[Steve]

Which is exactly why they prefer you to sign up for "auto-renew"...

AOPA will not fight anything unless the words "User Fees" are attached to it. If I hadn't forgotten I was on auto-renew, I would have already dumped AOPA.

 

[infotango]

Bill I saw your post on AOPA's forum.

That's why I don't post there too much. The thread "another suit against GA" is another reason. There are just too many people screaming at each other over there to have any fun, or any hope of a reasonable discussion.

The airspace grabs scare me as well. To be honest, I don't understand anything that is going on right now with aviation advocacy. I'm not sure why more effort isn't being spent to fight these airspace grabs. I'm also not sure why big corporate users of Bizjets and manufacturers of GA aircraft haven't been more vocal in fighting these userfees. If they have had such great business over the last few years, doesn't the fact that their market would die dramatically reduced if flying became more expensive scare them a little bit?

 

[wsuffa]

Dean,

If I thought for a minute that some kind of user fee would give us equal access to airspace and equal treatment to the airlines, I'd certainly consider user fees to be a viable option.

But I don't believe we'll ever get true, equal access to the airlines - even if we pay exactly the same amount as they do.

I sat in hold in a Citation II for 75 minutes one day trying to get into Miami. Airliner after airliner checked in while we were waiting - they were immediately sequenced for landing.

I've heard ATC outright deny a GA plane an IFR clearance because the pilot wanted to shoot approaches into Kerrville (not exactly a high-traffic airport). "Sorry, we don't allow practice approaches under IFR". Got my clearance out of there because I was going back to SSF.

Equal fees has to mean equal access. If we're relegated to "workload permitting" or "secondary" status, we ought to pay only a nominal amount. Period.

 

[Steve]

The NBAA hasn't exactly been sitting on their hands on the issue.

http://www.nbaa.org/

Bill I saw your post on AOPA's forum.

That's why I don't post there too much. The thread "another suit against GA" is another reason. There are just too many people screaming at each other over there to have any fun, or any hope of a reasonable discussion.

The airspace grabs scare me as well. To be honest, I don't understand anything that is going on right now with aviation advocacy. I'm not sure why more effort isn't being spent to fight these airspace grabs. I'm also not sure why big corporate users of Bizjets and manufacturers of GA aircraft haven't been more vocal in fighting these userfees. If they have had such great business over the last few years, doesn't the fact that their market would die dramatically reduced if flying became more expensive scare them a little bit?

 

[NC Pilot]

Dean,

If I thought for a minute that some kind of user fee would give us equal access to airspace and equal treatment to the airlines, I'd certainly consider user fees to be a viable option.

But I don't believe we'll ever get true, equal access to the airways - even if we pay exactly the same amount as they do.

I've heard ATC outright deny a GA plane an IFR clearance because the pilot wanted to shoot approaches into Kerrville (not exactly a high-traffic airport). "Sorry, we don't allow practice approaches under IFR". Got my clearance out of there because I was going back to SSF.

Equal fees has to mean equal access. If we're relegated to "workload permitting" or "secondary" status, we ought to pay only a nominal amount. Period.

Bill,

Bingo. I can't count the number of times I've called Phili approach or Cleveland approach (and there are many others I'm sure) and gotten either "too busy, call back in 5 minutes" five times or gotten some routing that takes me 80 miles out of the way to get out of their airspace as quick as possible. Often these are at 8:00 Sunday morning.

If I can call and get a clearance like the airlines do (including into and out of the class B airports if I want to), then user fees would be acceptable, but I believe it would be the same, or worse, service as we are getting now.

 

[mikea]

Personally, I think GA pilots are rather screwed up in their arguments on user fees and airspace.

...

While personally I don't advocate user fees, a user fee system for one year would certainly wake some people up to the fact that FAA services do have a real cost and that cost is more than they suspect.

You might want to read what other airlines are saying about the cost accounting claims. Not even all the airlines are behind this - just the big 7 who want to take control and stifle all competition... and they don't' even pay the same fees now:
http://www.library.unt.edu/gpo/NCARC/testimony/swa-te.htm

 

[SCCutler]

Not sure we are the "hog in the trough," but an even more important issue is this: essentially the same ATC and FAA services are necessary even if none of us lift a wing, and the figures on what it costs to provide these services are profoundly skewed by the data collection means. Example: the cost of providing a briefing includes a substantial component for the infrastructure used to gather the wx, infrastructure expense which would be essentially unaffected if we parked the entire GA fleet.

Similarly, the airspace system exists to improve safety in the airspace system; it is better to encourage as many participants in the system, not to discourage them, because the more players there are in the system, the fewer there are out of reach.

There are many fascinating analogies to other areas of public expense; there is nothing inherently different about aviation that justifies a sudden shift in funding schemes, especially changes which will decrease safety and cost thousands of jobs in the vital aviation sector.

 

[wsuffa]

Dean,

With all due respect, the analysis is not so simple. As Spike points out, there is a huge sunk cost in the system - cost that would not be there save for the scheduled carriers. There is the "value" equation - how much value is delivered to a specific party through the system. It's well established business practice to charge more to those who derive commercial value from the system (the phone company's charges for business lines vs residential lines is a perfect example - or utility services that offer discounts for interruptable service).

I do not disagree that the system needs to be more cost-effective. The fact is that the FAA has built the system with a bunch of silos and fiefdoms.

Should a small guy pay a significant sum to get routed through BFE... adding to his costs since a fuel tax is essentially a "time in system" costing system? It really doesn't take any more people or systems to allow a more direct routing than a BFE routing. Thus the cost base is no higher, yet the revenue derived is higher, sometimes significantly more. And the longer routing causes more time in system, which could potentially, increase workload.

BTW, in the Miami example that I mentioned, compare the flight-time cost of holding a Citation II for 45 minutes against the $2000 you mention. Were I the C-II operator subject to a $2000 fee, I'd not want to pay to hold on top of the charge, while the airlines (supposedly now paying the same rate per flight) get a direct shot in.

Dean, perhaps we must agree to disagree on whether user fees are right or not, or whether GA gets the shaft from ATC in a number of cities. We won't disagree that ATC could - and should - be more efficient (heck, my ex-wife worked on the AAS project when we moved back to DC in the mid-80's. You talk about ****ing money into a rat hole....).

FWIW, I'm betting that the outsource contract to LM on FSS will end up costing much, much more than it did before.... even though the efficiencies to be gained are long overdue.