Touch and Go fees?

nyoung

nyoung

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Nathan young
A friend of a friend got a bill in the mail for doing T&Gs at KHTO (East Hampton, NY). I have no idea how many T&Gs, nor how many he was billed. KHTO is untowered, so I guess the FBO does the counting and accounting.

I have received bills in the mail for landing fees (for example, at Cleveland Burke Lakefront), but never heard of a T&G fee, especially at an untowered field.

Just something for you New Yorkers to be aware... as you are out getting $100 hamburgers.

The fee is listed in the AFD. But (IMHO) it is a non-standard practice.
 
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This is pretty common in the New York area. Farmingdale, for instance, considers each T&G a landing, and you get charged $2.50 each.

Very annoying, but not much you can do about it.
 
I say, fly with Very Small Numbers, and make every traffic call, "Skyhawk Three Fife Niner Echo Sierra..."
 
Ted DuPuis said:
This is pretty common in the New York area. Farmingdale, for instance, considers each T&G a landing, and you get charged $2.50 each.

Very annoying, but not much you can do about it.
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How about an approach and go, never touching, just abort each time.
 
This is tool-a-licious. Make about fifty low approaches. Real slow ones.
 
And out here in the west, we've got some airports that would happily PAY you to do T&Gs at the airport.
 
FYI I believe many of these airports use a photo billing system, not a live human recording numbers. So you are never off the clock and if the system is as reliable as the speeding cameras being billed in error is likely.
 
Yet another reason I'm glad to live in Oklahoma.
 
150man said:
Yet another reason I'm glad to live in Oklahoma.
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A few months ago I landed in El Reno, OK. I asked the line guy if we owed him a facility fee. He looked at me like I was out of my mind and said, "Do you mean some airports charge you just for landing there?" I told him that the airport we had come from, KEGE (Eagle, CO) had just charged us a $300+ facility fee for being on the ramp for an hour... but don't tell your boss or it might give him ideas.
 
skidoo said:
How about an approach and go, never touching, just abort each time.
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Never tried it, but I'm pretty sure they'll count it, as well.
 
Everskyward said:
A few months ago I landed in El Reno, OK. I asked the line guy if we owed him a facility fee. He looked at me like I was out of my mind and said, "Do you mean some airports charge you just for landing there?" I told him that the airport we had come from, KEGE (Eagle, CO) had just charged us a $300+ facility fee for being on the ramp for an hour... but don't tell your boss or it might give him ideas.
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I've never landed at an airport in the great plaines region that charged for anything but gas. I even landed at Woodward, OK once because I couldn't get home due to T-storms. They put it in a hanger for the night, and I went and got it the next day- no charge. Here's a better one: Landed at Wiley Post in OKC. An FBO guy drove me to my meeting probably 5 miles away and came back and picked me up that afternoon and took me back to the airport. No charge.
 
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A little duct tape on the N number will take care of the problem.....
 
I'm having a hard time understanding why an airport would charge a t&g fee. To pay for the rare chance of a landing light being run over? I can understand a landing or ramp fee at a busy airport.

Yeah El Reno airport is a ghost town. Went there a few times when I lived in Mustang, OK. You can fit a Citation in the hangar at El Reno by using a forklift.
228536.jpg
 
T&G fees now? Sheesh. What's next? A brake use fee or a fuel sumping fee? Maybe a fee to do your own preflight?

The pay for everything and follow the crazy new rules structure of aviation in the last decade is reminding me of a song called Master Of The House from Les Miserables.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFPsEwV38Q0
 
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DC34ME said:
Yeah El Reno airport is a ghost town. Went there a few times when I lived in Mustang, OK. You can fit a Citation in the hangar at El Reno by using a forklift.
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I've heard of people doing that but I've never really seen it!

El Reno, the land of...

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I haven't done a landing in the NY metro area in more than seven years, but the places previously named were doing this back then, and for ten years before it. Never seen it anywhere else.
Jon
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Originally Posted by skidoo
How about an approach and go, never touching, just abort each time.
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Never tried it, but I'm pretty sure they'll count it, as well.
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I'm not a lawyer, but I would be very surpised if they had legal jusridiction to charge for the use of the airspace even one inch off the runway.
 
ClimbnSink said:
FYI I believe many of these airports use a photo billing system, not a live human recording numbers. So you are never off the clock and if the system is as reliable as the speeding cameras being billed in error is likely.
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Really? There is a photo billing system that actually works? The
volume of space that needs to be covered is huge. Ma$$port at
KBED was trying to do this a few years ago and couldn't get the
system to work.
 
If it is a photo billing system likely the bill will be created anyway sent out then sent to collections. Just another PIA.
Palmpilot said:
I'm not a lawyer, but I would be very surpised if they had legal jusridiction to charge for the use of the airspace even one inch off the runway.
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Palmpilot said:
I'm not a lawyer, but I would be very surpised if they had legal jusridiction to charge for the use of the airspace even one inch off the runway.
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If it was a towered airport, that would be pretty easy to argue that you used their controllers.

Legal? I have no idea. Get away with it? I'd be about certain they would.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
If it was a towered airport, that would be pretty easy to argue that you used their controllers.

Legal? I have no idea. Get away with it? I'd be about certain they would.
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I thought ATC, including contract ATC, was paid for by the FAA, not the airport owner.

If it's not legal, whether they would get away with it might depend on whether anyone challenged it.
 
Palmpilot said:
I thought ATC, including contract ATC, was paid for by the FAA, not the airport owner.

If it's not legal, whether they would get away with it might depend on whether anyone challenged it.
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I don't know if any currently exist, but airport operators can run their own towers. That doesn't mean they can charge for the use of public airspace.
 
kkoran said:
I don't know if any currently exist, but airport operators can run their own towers. That doesn't mean they can charge for the use of public airspace.
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Really, so I could set up my own tower at the local airport (I assume this would require at least 14 pounds of paperwork)? If this was a public airport, would that modify the airspace? Could I deny landing? Would I need to hire FAA controllers, or could I do it myself? Soooo many questions.
 
shenanigans said:
Really, so I could set up my own tower at the local airport (I assume this would require at least 14 pounds of paperwork)? If this was a public airport, would that modify the airspace? Could I deny landing? Would I need to hire FAA controllers, or could I do it myself? Soooo many questions.
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You couldn't, but the operators of the airport could (more likely, hire a contractor to provide the service). The existence of the tower wouldn't, in itself, modify the airspace (there are towers in Class E Airspace). You couldn't deny landings (controllers can't really deny landings). The controllers would have to hold Control Tower Operator certificates and be evaluated by the FAA.
 
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Palmpilot said:
I thought ATC, including contract ATC, was paid for by the FAA, not the airport owner.
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As I recall, the new tower at EAU did not open for several months after it was ready due to the city forgetting to budget for controllers to actually staff the tower. (Oops.) So I'm not so sure that local ATC is always paid for.
 
At my local airport, the amount paid by the FAA is determined by the number of operations. If there aren't enough, the airport has to contribute towards the cost.

We used to get informal requests to go do touch and gos to keep the numbers up.
 
I guess my "ATC is paid for by the FAA" argument fails.

I still have a hard time believing that an airport operator would have the legal authority to charge for use of airspace, even if they called it a fee for ATC services. And it would seem odd if a non-federal entity were allowed to charge for ATC services when the FAA is not allowed to do it.

Does anyone know of a U.S. airport that is allowed to charge fees to aircraft that do not touch down? I've seen landing fees mentioned in the A/FD, but not low approach fees. I checked the listing for HTO, and it says "Ldg fee for all transient acft to include touch and go ops," but there is no mention of a fee for low approaches.
 
Palmpilot said:
Does anyone know of a U.S. airport that is allowed to charge fees to aircraft that do not touch down?
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The last I heard, the national airspace system was under federal jurisdiction.
My guess is that the first time an airport gets away with charging for flying over in any form and that information hits the public, every state, county and city across the continent who wants free money will start charging anything going over up to FL600 and ursurp federal jurisdiction. Imagine the free money waiting to be collected if your dinky quiet town was under a primary approach route to somewhere like NYC. $$$$$
 
fgcason said:
The last I heard, the national airspace system was under federal jurisdiction.
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True, but (and that's a big but) federal jurisdiction does not apply all the way to the surface. I don't remember the exact altitude - maybe 200' or so?

If you're below that, I could certainly see how someone can charge you for using their property. Of course, federal funding guidelines and all that probably complicates matters for those airports that used funding.
 
Have any of you guys ever gotten a bill for a landing you didn't do? I live in the mid-Atlantic and fly up into the NE all the time to these airports and have paid many bills to the Port Authority of NY/NJ. I once got a bill for a landing at Morristown NJ when I was down in Florida with the plane in question. I just called them and told them it wasn't me and they must have gotten the number wrong and it went away.

Just saying...
 
PittsDriver said:
Have any of you guys ever gotten a bill for a landing you didn't do? I live in the mid-Atlantic and fly up into the NE all the time to these airports and have paid many bills to the Port Authority of NY/NJ. I once got a bill for a landing at Morristown NJ when I was down in Florida with the plane in question. I just called them and told them it wasn't me and they must have gotten the number wrong and it went away.

Just saying...
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Some may remember one time (pre-9/11)a guy stole a 152 and
buzzed KBOS a few times (even doing a bounce and go or 2). The guy
was eventually arrested. Some time later there were news reports
of the owner of 152 getting a bill from Ma$$port for the landings at
KBOS. (yes, eventually a braincell fired somewhere and someone
got the charges deleted)
 
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