Sign the Petition to Save the Most Important Towered Fields

Dav8or said:
Do you see any logic in the federal government and it's policies??
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Sometimes a glimmer. For example, given a choice between the sequester and additional tax hikes the House chose the sequester.

Sorry, but I have to disagree, if the federal funds are yanked from a particular airport, everyone will still pay the same taxes.
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From a particular airport, yes, so yank them from all airports by rescinding the legislation that provides the funding and the taxing authority.
 
Brainard used to be a second home to me.
We did just Hunky-Dorey back then without a tower and the same can be said for the future.
I encourage more fields to dump their towers and strive for open access by all pilots without interlopers intruding.
Airliners don't like doing pattern work with their pax and their scheds. OK for those fields (of at least Class C designations); but close the towers on the rest

(same refusal to sign for KHFD applies to KAEG)
 
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Now Craig Fuller is playing into the government by condemning the sequester cuts.

Well, that guarantees I won't be renewing my membership.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Now Craig Fuller is playing into the government by condemning the sequester cuts.

Well, that guarantees I won't be renewing my membership.
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In case it matters, Craig Fuller has announced his resignation, effective when they are able to get a replacement hired.
 
Palmpilot said:
In case it matters, Craig Fuller has announced his resignation, effective when they are able to get a replacement hired.
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I'll wait to see what said new leader does.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Well, I know pretty much everybody there. And yes, it is a very quiet airport.

I think Jim Doebler is still teaching the class. He does a good job with it, although his speech on LOP is pretty funny if you understand what's actually occuring vs what he says. He may have changed it in 7 years, but I doubt it.

You'll enjoy the plant tour. Neat halls to walk down.
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I'm definitely enjoying Jim... Knowledeable as an encylopedia, a skilled institutional archeologist and a skilled teacher. He may waste a word every other day or so but you usually miss it.

LOP is tomorrow.
 
Jim's a lot of fun. As an engineer who knew some of the realities I picked a few holes in his instruction, but from an operator's perspective, it's quite complete.
 
I totally understand the reasoning behind the closures. I just worry about the uprise in accidents that are bound to happen at the busier spots. At SAC I had a foreign pilot try to enter the pattern the opposite way while I was in it, head on into me. Mainly because he couldn't understand English and was an idiot pilot. Needless to say the controller RIPPED into the guy. Also, it is much nicer to have tower close my ifr :)

The loss of so many jobs is also unfortunate.
 
Dean V said:
Good idea, except most tax payers in those local govts. don't want their local tax dollars spent on a bunch of relatively wealthy pilots. The answerer, a $100 landing fee, additional fees for fuel, and tie down.
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That'll reduce traffic, revenue, and the need for the tower.
 
With regard to CA airport closures, I think the CURRENT list of updated closures makes sense. I hate to see towers close, and people lose jobs that is not what I want, but if we are looking at towers that can close and have those airports still operate safely, I think the list was well thought out oddly enough.
 
Inverted said:
With regard to CA airport closures, I think the CURRENT list of updated closures makes sense. I hate to see towers close, and people lose jobs that is not what I want, but if we are looking at towers that can close and have those airports still operate safely, I think the list was well thought out oddly enough.
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Really?

KWHP and KSAC are on that list. Some of them make sense (KMER), but some really are too busy.

With KWHP in particular, you're going to have departing traffic getting of CTAF in a real hurry to get in contact with SoCal to transit KBUR. KSAC is only somewhat better due to the two Class C's nearby.
 
KSAC is a non issue. That airport is so dead, the last thing it needs is a tower. KSMF is plenty far away to be just fine. My guess is that WHP being non-towered will necessitate a change to the BUR class C. Or BUR will become a satellite tower for IFR departures. There are plenty of non-towered airports across the country that underly other airspace.
 
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190 closures is a good start. Sorry, won't participate in the OP's, or POTUS, request/desire.
 
Everyone here is so tough and invincible! I love it hahaha. Guess I shouldn't be surprised at the amount of people hinting at their conservative political views given the average age around here.

After I touched down yesterday, told my local tower that I hope they stick around a while longer and that I'd keep my eyes on the news. He thanked me with a lot of sincerity in his voice.
 
Skyscraper said:
Everyone here is so tough and invincible! I love it hahaha. Guess I shouldn't be surprised at the amount of people hinting at their conservative political views given the average age around here.

After I touched down yesterday, told my local tower that I hope they stick around a while longer and that I'd keep my eyes on the news. He thanked me with a lot of sincerity in his voice.
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Tough and invincible? What can the tower do for you to save you that Approach or Center cannot? If you can't or don't feel comfortable flying into a non towered field, there are more serious issues at play than tower closures. Fact is that towers at many airports are a waste of money.

Thing is, from the looks of the numbers, if they eliminated all the FAA staffed towers and turned them into contract towers, we could likely keep them all open and save more money than just closing these select towers.
 
Henning said:
Tough and invincible? What can the tower do for you to save you that Approach or Center cannot? If you can't or don't feel comfortable flying into a non towered field, there are more serious issues at play than tower closures. Fact is that towers at many airports are a waste of money.

Thing is, from the looks of the numbers, if they eliminated all the FAA staffed towers and turned them into contract towers, we could likely keep them all open and save more money than just closing these select towers.
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Aside from my home airport, most of the places I land do not have towers, which is just fine. I just think that there are much better ways to cut spending or increase revenue than closing these towers.

Given the lack of tower love around here, what do you think the chances that privately contracted towers would ever come to fruition? (not rhetorical, I'm actually asking) Some things may not be financially practical, but that doesn't mean their existence is not justified. It's only when our foreign nation building expenses reach the spending limits of our Chinese credit card that we start penny pinching everything. It's unfortunate that our economy has been engineered to dwindle to such a state that people now view any gov't spending as a bad thing.
 
For some reason nearly at any uncontrolled field I flown I encountered a bunch of wrongs calls, no calls, wrong entries, cutting in front... you name it !

Sure we don't need towers, lets nature do it's job of natural selection :lol:
 
Henning said:
If you can't or don't feel comfortable flying into a non towered field, there are more serious issues at play than tower closures.
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That's the fallacy of the excluded middle. Believing that there are towers that should remain open is not necessarily synonymous with "can't or don't feel comfortable flying into a non towered field."

Fact is that towers at many airports are a waste of money.
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Probably true.

Thing is, from the looks of the numbers, if they eliminated all the FAA staffed towers and turned them into contract towers, we could likely keep them all open and save more money than just closing these select towers.
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Sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately, it looks like we are dealing with a case of bureacrats protecting their own.
 
Dean V said:
Next week you can tell us how much you enjoy toll roads.
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The one from Miami to the Broward county line I love! It can save me hours during rush hour when a 40 minute drive goes from 2 to 4 hours on the other side of the barrier. However, it's not a relevant comparison. What we have NOW will be a valid comparison in a few months when those closed tower airport managers fund the controllers and institute a landing fee to pay for it.
 
*GASP*

3 or 4 airplanes in the pattern at once? My gahd, you guys are just flying everywhere, like a bee hive! I don't even know how ATC can keep up with that load.

Wait...yes I do, its because ATC provides absolutely no service worth any mention to a VFR pilot. And, tower provides absolutely no service worth any mention to an IFR pilot (ARTCC and Approach/Departure does the real work). Cut 'em all, save a bunch o' money, and lets say we did our part to save the country.

Not signing this petition.
 
SkyHog said:
*GASP*

3 or 4 airplanes in the pattern at once?
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Pattern? What pattern? Who the hell needs a pattern? Land however you want. Three runways at the field? That's awesome! Now we can potentially land six guys at once! A model of efficiency! We can work it all out on the radio... wait a minute! Who needs a radio?!! My eyeballs work better than any stinking radio. Intersection takeoffs, taxiway takeoffs, whatever, whoever gets to the runway first wins! No more nanny state and it's the sweat taste of freedom!:goofy:

I'm going to buy a King Air when I get my refund check from the government from all the money they saved.
 
You know at ISZ there were three schools, lots of transient traffic, helicopter training, balloon flights.

One midair, outside of the pattern that I am not convinced a tower would have prevented.

Now I am at HAO, with even more traffic, a greater diversity of aircraft and still no tower.

I will not sign your petition.

I will however mention that the sequester is not the right reason to be closing these towers.
 
My field has a very active flight school, lots of transient traffic (self-service mogas), gliders flying right hand-pattern, and intersecting grass and paved runways. No problems at all. I think it makes you a better pilot and keeps you from getting complacent.
 
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JB1842 said:
My field has a very active flight school, lots of transient traffic (self-service mogas), gliders flying right hand-pattern, and intersecting grass and paved runways. No problems at all. I think it makes you a better pilot and keeps you from getting complacent.
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I've been flying to uncontrolled fields for more than 10 years...It didn't make me a better pilot, however, it did increase amount of grey hair on my head after few near misses :lol:
 
You can tell who had crossing guards on the walk to school and who didn't. Crossing guards have mucked up natural selection, it is a crime against nature.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Oh, and if there's a guy in the tower who sounds like someone's ****ed in his Cheerios for the past 10 years, make sure to bug him by calling in any "S" as "Sugar" instead of Sierra. ;)
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Funniest post i've read all day.

I dont care to get political and am to new to flying to get involved in such a discussion but i'll throw my two cents in anyways.

infrastructure, schools, etc are important. Anything that adds safety to those flying and things around airports are important. There is plenty of other wasted spending in our country that could be cut instead of these things. I feel bad for those loosing there jobs instead of *gasp* raising taxes and stopping wars.

Oh well though, at least my flight school has a tower for me to learn with, for now!
 
A class D tower doesn't add much if any safety to those flying. Class D tower is only responsible for maintaining separation on the ground.
 
Henning said:
A class D tower doesn't add much if any safety to those flying. Class D tower is only responsible for maintaining separation on the ground.
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Controllers are generally responsible for providing separation of IFR traffic. Despite this fact D-towers generally speaking do help with traffic separation disregarding if they are IFR or VFR.

Since I'm based at class D airport I can tell they do great job because sometimes at my home airports it gets very busy.Sometimes I even offer students to fly off the rush hours since to save their money and time :lol:
 
sdflyer said:
Controllers are generally responsible for providing separation of IFR traffic. Despite this fact D-towers generally speaking do help with traffic separation disregarding if they are IFR or VFR.

Since I'm based at class D airport I can tell they do great job because sometimes at my home airports it gets very busy.Sometimes I even offer students to fly off the rush hours since to save their money and time :lol:
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Very busy like the OP's 3-5 planes in the pattern at once, or very busy like a real busy airport with 8+ in the pattern at once?
 
I will not sign this petition because admitting that a control tower makes the skies safer would be a huge blow to my pilot ego that I've been working so hard on.
 
If'n you really want the towers open vote out the TeaPublicans. That'd fix a lot more than just the tower issue...
 
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