Small Piston Aircraft Lives Matter! Owner Sues SFO

I guess some people have more money than brains.

A minimum $175 landing fee is enough to keep me out of there. Especially when there is a much more friendly GA airport barely 5 miles away. If you just gotta have BART access, Oakland works better.
 
From a practical perspective at least, I sure wouldn't want to have to operate out of an airport where I was unwelcome. There are so many helpful little things the FBOs, controllers, etc will do for us that they don't have to... imagine if they had a reason not to.

That said, the guy paid his lease and he's got every right to be there. I don't really see them having a leg to stand on.
 
John221us said:
He is standing up for GA. I can't imagine why he would have ever based himself there, but you gotta give him credit.
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Agreed. I appreciate his effort. I would have thrown up my hands and said, "You all suck."
 
I get the feeling from the article that there is much more backstory and history so would love to hear both sides unfiltered...but that will never happen. If you are the last one standing on the deck of the ship going down...no amount of screaming and lawsuits are gonna keep it from sinking before you're peddlin water.
 
Oddly DEN which has more traffic (albeit on a much more diverse runway layout) and CLT (which has slightly less) seem to have no problem with the gas burning crowd.

IAD didn't encourage me to leave, but the fees for "permission to leave my plane on their ramp" (not even an assigned space) tripled over the space of five or six years. It went from $125 when I started there to about $350. At least I can say I neglected to tell the FBO I had come or go, choosing to tie myself down, which seems to have avoided incuring too many landing fees.
 
The controllers and FBO people were great whenever I flew into IAD. They seem to be pretty GA friendly fro a Class B. Fees are crazy though like you said. I haven't had any issues with any B airport.
 
I wish him success.

If he loses, it sets a horrible legal precedent regarding Grant Assurances that is certain to be quickly abused.
 
Why does the airport care he's there as long as he's paying his bills?
 
Good for him! I hope he takes it to sfo and I hope this sends a nice message to the rest of the "too big for their britches" airport managers.
 
This is a great video and not one they want to see at Sfo I guess.

 
denverpilot said:
I wish him success.

If he loses, it sets a horrible legal precedent regarding Grant Assurances that is certain to be quickly abused.
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It won't have any legal precedence vis a vis Grant Assurances unless he also filed a Rule 16 complaint with the FAA. The airport from a purely civil law standpoint has some 'splaining to do.
 
timwinters said:
Hmmm...he shoulda contacted @Kristin to represent him. She woulda ripped SFO a new one!
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I probably would have taken the case, assuming there isn't some hidden issues. I don't know his attorney. I don't believe that she is part of the local aviation attorneys as I have never seen her on a case.
 
Kristin said:
It won't have any legal precedence vis a vis Grant Assurances unless he also filed a Rule 16 complaint with the FAA. The airport from a purely civil law standpoint has some 'splaining to do.
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I won't claim to understand the ridiculous piles of rulebooks required to operate such things, but if his complaint is that the airport can't discriminate against any user due to their grant assurances and he loses, doesn't that become something to reference for the next case brought for the same reason? Even if only referenced as a "this is how a similar case was handled, Your Honor" type of thing?

Definitely not a lawyer and don't want to be one.
 
denverpilot said:
I won't claim to understand the ridiculous piles of rulebooks required to operate such things, but if his complaint is that the airport can't discriminate against any user due to their grant assurances and he loses, doesn't that become something to reference for the next case brought for the same reason? Even if only referenced as a "this is how a similar case was handled, Your Honor" type of thing?

Definitely not a lawyer and don't want to be one.
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It could be a discrimination claim under state law, it could be citing breaches of the Grant Assurances, it could be simple breach of contract. I haven't seen the complaint, so I don't know.
 
OK! I found the complaint and if the upload works, you can read it.

To answer the other question, state trial courts pretty much never issue an opinion and they are never precedent. If it were appealed up the line, it might be precedent for California courts. However, the precedent value will be somewhat limited as it wouldn't be from a federal court and the FAA's interpretation of their own rules and regulations are due substantial deference by the courts.
 

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So I guess his 182 is the single engine airplane in the statistics. Who owns the helicopter?
 

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dans2992 said:
Why does the airport care he's there as long as he's paying his bills?
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Watch the conga line some nice evening when you can see 100 miles and perhaps you'll understand why a four seat airplane displacing 400 seats or more is a problem. And that's in good weather. When it goes under PRM minima, it gets real bad.

SFO is not ORD, nor is it DEN or IAD. In poor weather, they are often down to one runway. In good weather with some wind (every afternoon in summer), they still only have two.
 
Just got me thinking.... what would happen if a couple hundred SE piston aircraft filed IFR into SFO one day? Would they all be told to go away and the big jets get priority?

Not that I want to see that happen, just wondering if ATC prioritized the heavy iron and if so, to what extent?
 
MAKG1 said:
Watch the conga line some nice evening when you can see 100 miles and perhaps you'll understand why a four seat airplane displacing 400 seats or more is a problem. And that's in good weather. When it goes under PRM minima, it gets real bad.

SFO is not ORD, nor is it DEN or IAD. In poor weather, they are often down to one runway. In good weather with some wind (every afternoon in summer), they still only have two.
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I'll play mild devil's advocate here...

If SFO is often down to one runway, because of a well known weather pattern, perhaps they're just over capacity and their grant money should go toward something that can truly relieve their capacity problem.

Plus I seriously doubt the guy is out trying to depart on a day when he knows he's going to be number 20 for departure. Have any evidence of that, or just a convenient fictional story?
 
denverpilot said:
Plus I seriously doubt the guy is out trying to depart on a day when he knows he's going to be number 20 for departure. Have any evidence of that, or just a convenient fictional story?
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Well, according to the AirNav "statistics", local General Aviation makes up 2% of the 1199 aircraft operations per day - thus: 24 operations/day.

Seeing that he's the only local there, he is one busy bee...
 
deonb said:
Well, according to the AirNav "statistics", local General Aviation makes up 2% of the 1199 aircraft operations per day - thus: 24 operations/day.

Seeing that he's the only local there, he is one busy bee...
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Number of operations are not necessarily associated with aircraft which are based at any particular airport. There's no direct correlation.

You don't have to be based somewhere to operate there, of course.
 
denverpilot said:
Number of operations are not necessarily associated with aircraft which are based at any particular airport. There's no direct correlation.

You don't have to be based somewhere to operate there, of course.
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They break down transient vs. local GA. Transient is 3%, Local is 2%.

Either way, it was more of a tongue-in-the-cheek complaint about the extreme inaccuracy of the numbers that get reported.
 
denverpilot said:
I'll play mild devil's advocate here...

If SFO is often down to one runway, because of a well known weather pattern, perhaps they're just over capacity and their grant money should go toward something that can truly relieve their capacity problem.

Plus I seriously doubt the guy is out trying to depart on a day when he knows he's going to be number 20 for departure. Have any evidence of that, or just a convenient fictional story?
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Ok, go on Google Maps, look at the airport, and make a suggestion.

The problem has been known since the 70s. There is no solution at that airport site, nor is there a larger suitable site anywhere nearby.

In air traffic management, the serious problems are on arrival.
 
denverpilot said:
I'll play mild devil's advocate here...

If SFO is often down to one runway, because of a well known weather pattern, perhaps they're just over capacity and their grant money should go toward something that can truly relieve their capacity problem.
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The parallel runways are too close together to allow simultaneous approaches in bad weather. They have tried some technological solutions. Look at the ILS PRM and the LDA PRM. But the minimums for those approaches are pretty high since you need to see the preceding airplane on the parallel.

There was a lot of complaining about the new Denver airport, but we don't have that problem here because we built it. San Francisco has no equivalent flat piece of land or anywhere to expand.
 
deonb said:
They break down transient vs. local GA. Transient is 3%, Local is 2%.

Either way, it was more of a tongue-in-the-cheek complaint about the extreme inaccuracy of the numbers that get reported.
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He apparently has not been allowed to fly the plane in a year, so that 2% is not him. Other non piston aircraft are also considered GA, such private and corporate jets.
 
deonb said:
Well, according to the AirNav "statistics", local General Aviation makes up 2% of the 1199 aircraft operations per day - thus: 24 operations/day.

Seeing that he's the only local there, he is one busy bee...
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And don't confuse turbine ops with his lone piston aircraft. He claims to be the only piston aircraft; not the only GA aircraft.
 
MAKG1 said:
Watch the conga line some nice evening when you can see 100 miles and perhaps you'll understand why a four seat airplane displacing 400 seats or more is a problem. And that's in good weather. When it goes under PRM minima, it gets real bad.

SFO is not ORD, nor is it DEN or IAD. In poor weather, they are often down to one runway. In good weather with some wind (every afternoon in summer), they still only have two.
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I don't think it's the number of seats that anyone cares about, I think it's performance, approach speeds, climb rates, I doubt they wouldn't have a problem with say a L39, or if you want to talk piston, a NXT Nemesis, or P-51/Titan 51, if you aren't slowing down traffic on the ILS, SID, who cares how many seats.
 
James331 said:
I don't think it's the number of seats that anyone cares about, I think it's performance, approach speeds, climb rates, I doubt they wouldn't have a problem with say a L39, or if you want to talk piston, a NXT Nemesis, or P-51/Titan 51, if you aren't slowing down traffic on the ILS, SID, who cares how many seats.
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You may be right, but I suspect it's both. The performance issues will displace more than one aircraft on approach. But even displacing one interferes with the Part 121 traffic, which is the reason that airport exists. Unlike other airports in the region (including a few historical airports not far away from SFO, now long gone), it was never a hobby pilot airport.

CAP has had to fly in on a couple of occasions chasing ELTs. It's not often that you fly an approach in a 182 at cruise throttle. Not for the faint of heart.
 
The solution to SFO traffic is a third runway which is feasible and the FAA would fund. It involves filling in the bay to the north to create a new 28R. The environmentalists went ape-**** when it was proposed a couple of decades ago and in SF, that is all it takes to kill something.
 
Kristin said:
The solution to SFO traffic is a third runway which is feasible and the FAA would fund. It involves filling in the bay to the north to create a new 28R. The environmentalists went ape-**** when it was proposed a couple of decades ago and in SF, that is all it takes to kill something.
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There is obviously more to it than that.

A new 28R across the old seaplane port would displace the American Airlines facility and perhaps the UAL facility as well, and make it into a prohibitively expensive project vulnerable to earthquakes. There are A LOT of D checks going on in that area, that would all need to go to Denver and Dallas. Enormous net loss in airport jobs, and disruption to two major air carriers.
 
MAKG1 said:
There is obviously more to it than that.

A new 28R across the old seaplane port would displace the American Airlines facility and perhaps the UAL facility as well, and make it into a prohibitively expensive project vulnerable to earthquakes. There are A LOT of D checks going on in that area, that would all need to go to Denver and Dallas. Enormous net loss in airport jobs, and disruption to two major air carriers.
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Actually not, as the runway was going to be north of all the existing land so that there would be enough separation for simultaneous ILS approaches which IIRC is like 4,800'. It would be a massive fill project which would upset some slug that lives in the ooze at the bottom of the bay.

I am not sure that there is much heavy maintenance going on at SFO any more. The labor costs in CA has driven much of it out of state or out of the country. United closed its heavy maintenance base at OAK years ago.
 
Kristin said:
Actually not, as the runway was going to be north of all the existing land so that there would be enough separation for simultaneous ILS approaches which IIRC is like 4,800'. It would be a massive fill project which would upset some slug that lives in the ooze at the bottom of the bay.

I am not sure that there is much heavy maintenance going on at SFO any more. The labor costs in CA has driven much of it out of state or out of the country. United closed its heavy maintenance base at OAK years ago.
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Well, UAL TechOps claims 3500 employees at their SFO facility, so it appears they are alive and well.

It's not obvious that a runway built entirely in the Bay is "feasible." Lots of things are feasible with infinite money. Money is not infinite. And recent history along those lines has not been good, for instance fill subsidence at Osaka. The runway won't do much good if it buckles.
 
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