Tower closure poll. Lurkers welcome.

What towers, if any, should be closed, or open.

  • Close all towers on the sequester list.

    Votes: 24 22.4%

  • Close only the FAA towers on the sequester list.

    Votes: 3 2.8%

  • Close only the contract towers on the sequester list.

    Votes: 2 1.9%

  • Close choice towers on "the list" after further study.

    Votes: 66 61.7%

  • Close all Class D towers.

    Votes: 5 4.7%

  • Close all Class D and C towers.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Close all Towers everywhere.

    Votes: 3 2.8%

  • Put towers on every field.

    Votes: 4 3.7%
  • Total voters
    107
Dav8or

Dav8or

Final Approach
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Messages
5,174
Location
Discovery Bay, CA
Display Name
Dave
Home Airfield
C83 Byron, CA
I'm curious to see pilot's opinions on tower closures and hoping to get a more complete picture of POA members including all the lurkers. It's all anonymous, so no fear of internet bully harassment for picking the "wrong" choice. I tried to think of all the options.
 
It's simple. The FAA needs to do a complete review on all contract towers and decide if the airport still warrants having a tower. This should primarily be a traffic count issue but I can see commuter service having weight as well. I have several friends in contract towers and I'd hate to see anyone lose their job but the fact is there are plenty of airports that just don't have the need for a tower.

Also we keep talking about the tower closures, let's not forget that there are plenty of larger non contract towers (class C) where hours are being cut and controllers are being furloughed. Budget cuts are being felt across the entire ATC spectrum. I wonder if anyone in management at OK City is at risk of a pay cut???
 
Lots of choices there but I didn't see "leave everything alone". :D
 
I picked "Close all the towers on the sequester list."

I don't think it's perfect, but a lot of those towers have no business being open. I'd rather close too many than too few - they can always petition to reopen them afterwards. I also don't think we should close all Class D airports.
 
I picked the "after study" choice because it appears that some of the towers on the list really shouldn't be closed.
 
I would have picked keep the status quo and review the need for towers on an annual basis and when it seems an untowered airport needs a tower or a towered airport no longer needs it use input from ATC, the pilots who use the airport, the airport management, and the community to help make a decision that is determined by those who use the airport.

I think we all can agree that there are some airports that have towers that do not necessarily need them and there are some airports that do not have towers that may be better off with one, and that what is applicable today may change tomorrow.
 
douglas393 said:
I would have picked keep the status quo and review the need for towers on an annual basis and when it seems an untowered airport needs a tower or a towered airport no longer needs it use input from ATC, the pilots who use the airport, the airport management, and the community to help make a decision that is determined by those who use the airport.

I think we all can agree that there are some airports that have towers that do not necessarily need them and there are some airports that do not have towers that may be better off with one, and that what is applicable today may change tomorrow.
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I picked "after study" but this is pretty much how I feel too.
 
douglas393 said:
I would have picked keep the status quo and review the need for towers on an annual basis and when it seems an untowered airport needs a tower or a towered airport no longer needs it use input from ATC, the pilots who use the airport, the airport management, and the community to help make a decision that is determined by those who use the airport.

I think we all can agree that there are some airports that have towers that do not necessarily need them and there are some airports that do not have towers that may be better off with one, and that what is applicable today may change tomorrow.
Click to expand...

This would make the most sense. Unfortunately, politics and government wouldn't allow it. The problem is that senators keep on pushing the FAA to open more towers in their home states, and then moan for their constituents if an attempt to close one ever happens. It's more evidence of our ineffective government that it has to happen in this manner. That said, without it being cut this way, it just wouldn't happen.
 
Everskyward said:
Lots of choices there but I didn't see "leave everything alone". :D
Click to expand...

Crap! I originally counted on my fingers 9 options and then when I went to actually put the poll up, I could only think of 8. Do nothing was of course option 9!:mad2:
 
Some of them definitely need to be closed. For example, Branson MO only has 7000 operations per year. My local field (AWM) has around 50k with no tower, and it has never once been much of problem.
 
Dav8or said:
I'm curious to see pilot's opinions on tower closures and hoping to get a more complete picture of POA members including all the lurkers. It's all anonymous, so no fear of internet bully harassment for picking the "wrong" choice. I tried to think of all the options.
Click to expand...

Close no towers. Quit giving millions to Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, and studies of duck penises.
 
My vote would have been "turn all FAA towers into contract towers".
 
geneseib said:
Close no towers. Quit giving millions to Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, and studies of duck penises.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. There are things the government spends our money on that are way more foolish than a control tower at a sleepy airport in the boondocks. We really need to concentrate on the homeland and not so much being the world savior and/or policeman.

I am curious about the duck penises though...:D

P.S. Please don't respond to my little political rant too much. I'd like to keep this out of the SZ.
 
Close all towers; put duck penises on every field.
 
There are some towers on the list that definitely need to stay operational, while there are also some towers on the list that should never ever have been towered airports to begin with.
 
Kinda scares me that 11 people chose the first option....I'm not a huge fan of the poll since it appears somewhat biased to me, but I picked the "after review" option since there are 2 or 3 airports I have been to on the list that legitimately do not need their towers;however, my true feeling is for them to stop trying to fix what isn't broken and look at possibly cutting other areas of the budget......like you know......foreign aid and missles and stuff....
 
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GCA319 said:
Kinda scares me that 11 people chose the first option....I'm not a huge fan of the poll since it appears somewhat biased to me, but I picked the "after review" option since there are 2 or 3 airports I have been to on the list that legitimately do not need their towers;however, my true feeling is for them to stop trying to fix what isn't broken and look at possibly cutting other areas of the budget......like you know......foreign aid and missles and stuff....
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Dude.......... The US government is hemmoraging money to the point of causing this great nation to fail..:eek:...

Treat ALL guvmint programs like we should be fighting wars....

"kill them all and let god sort it out"...
 
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GCA319 said:
Kinda scares me that 11 people chose the first option....I'm not a huge fan of the poll since it appears somewhat biased to me, but I picked the "after review" option since there are 2 or 3 airports I have been to on the list that legitimately do not need their towers;however, my true feeling is for them to stop trying to fix what isn't broken and look at possibly cutting other areas of the budget......like you know......foreign aid and missles and stuff....
Click to expand...

Now I've gone and made it 12. Be dismayed!

I say we charge $10 per "operation" to keep a tower at the field and let the GA pilots decide which fields to frequent. Proceeds divided amongst the tower personnel.

No good? How about $1/gal at towered fields, also divided?

Choosing the "I wanna study the list some more" is a vote for inaction. The money isn't there, the benefits need to be cut, and we all need to either collectively come up with the cash (added fees, tip-your-controller jar, local pilot fundraising efforts, buy a $5 box of Do-si-does from ground control or else you can't use taxiway charlie...), or we need to give the goodies back and try to remember how we did things with less.

...imho. :D

I'm actually annoyed that we've forestalled the sequester until June. Every pilot I know is pulling a chicken little routine about how safety is now threatened with no tower. As if we're all balsa-wood airplanes on strings held by a kid in a glass box with a bunch of antennae on it, and without him, we'd all rain fire and death on the populace.

I'm a better pilot than that, and I resent the implication that without a control tower to do my thinking for me, that I'm a pending NTSB report.

- Mike
 
I voted close all class d towers. No study needed, by virtue of being class d we know they don't need a tower. Once they are all gone and nothing happens we can se what class c airports can get the axe. All this whining for gov $ is pathetic our towers and foreign aid for duck penii is the same thing, spending vapor dollars.
 
ClimbnSink said:
I voted close all class d towers. No study needed, by virtue of being class d we know they don't need a tower. Once they are all gone and nothing happens we can se what class c airports can get the axe. All this whining for gov $ is pathetic our towers and foreign aid for duck penii is the same thing, spending vapor dollars.
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:thumbsup: I agree...........But who am I......
 
I have no problem operating in a towerless environment.....but I'd honestly like to see the country commit to reducing the countless out of control benefit spending before we start thinking that cutting FAA tower spending is going to make a dent in the problem.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
geneseib said:
Close no towers. Quit giving millions to Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, and studies of duck penises.
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...and Billions to Isreal:stirpot:. Why only Muslims, Palestinians and ducks?:D.
3.1 Billion could keep a lot of towers open! :yes:.


"The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service produces reports on U.S. foreign aid to Israel. On table B-1 of its March 2012 report, the CRS says military aid to Israel reached its highest level in raw dollars at $3.12 billion in 2000 – slightly more than the $3.075 billion given to Israel in fiscal 2012 and the $3.1 billion Obama has requested for this fiscal year.

The report says that the “FY2000 military grants include $1.2 billion for the Wye agreement and $1.92 billion in annual military aid” for a total of $3.12 billion. The annual military aid — known as the Foreign Military Financing grant — was supplemented that year by additional military funding as an incentive to sign the so-called Wye River Memorandum, an agreement brokered by the Clinton administration as part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process of the late 1990s.

The additional military funding that year was so important to President Clinton that he vetoed the fiscal 2000 foreign aid appropriations bill “in part because it did not include the Wye funding,” CRS says. Congress shortly after approved the $1.2 billion in Wye funding for Israel.
In addition to being slightly more in raw dollars, the $3.12 billion given to Israel in 2000 has the buying power of nearly $4.2 billion in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation.

This is not the first time that an administration official called the $3.1 billion military assistance to Israel a record high. Antony J. Blinken, the deputy national security advisor and former national security advisor to Biden, made the same claim in a speech on March 26, 2012. “And despite tough fiscal times, President Obama has requested $3.1 billion in military assistance for 2013 — the most ever,” Blinken said.

One last thing: The $3.1 billion in the president’s proposed 2013 budget is in keeping with the funding level agreed to by the Bush administration in 2007."
 
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Fearless Tower said:
I have no problem operating in a towerless environment.....but I'd honestly like to see the country commit to reducing the countless out of control benefit spending before we start thinking that cutting FAA tower spending is going to make a dent in the problem.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...

I agree, but we've got to start somewhere.
 
redtail said:
...and Billions to Isreal:stirpot:. Why only Muslims, Palestinians and ducks?:D.
3.1 Billion could keep a lot of towers open! :yes:.


"The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service produces reports on U.S. foreign aid to Israel. On table B-1 of its March 2012 report, the CRS says military aid to Israel reached its highest level in raw dollars at $3.12 billion in 2000 – slightly more than the $3.075 billion given to Israel in fiscal 2012 and the $3.1 billion Obama has requested for this fiscal year.

"
Click to expand...

I agree 100%..... Israel has a very vibrant Economy and even one penny of US aid to them is nothing more then a bribe to be our friends..:mad:
 
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The only airports in my locality on 'the list' that I think actually have a need for a tower - only need one for special events.

For example, Concord NC on a race week.

Maybe a budget for temp towers during special events is in order.
 
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