Posted on 06/14/2017 4:52:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
Wonder why your flight is late?
Why planes keep circling?
Why even after you've landed, you sometimes can't deplane?
Bad weather plays a role, but flying is also nastier because American airports use 50-year-old technology.
This shouldn't surprise us. Government bureaucracies are always slow. That's as true on the tarmac as everywhere else.
It's not Federal Aviation Administration workers' fault. They're just following the government rulebook that says you must not change something without getting permission first. You must not buy anything without going through cumbersome acquisitions regulations.
The FAA's new NextGen system was designed to make the system more efficient by using satellites instead of ground-based radar. It would let planes fly closer to each other, speeding up everything. This technology has existed for two decades, but because of the bureaucracy, it's still being rolled out.
"By the time the government gets the equipment, many times it's no longer state-of-the-art," complains Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.
Outside government, progress happens. Uber replaces taxis because Uber is better and safer. Waze is better than paper maps. My laptop, on which I write this, is better than my typewriter.
Outside government, people constantly invent better computers, phones, foods, music...
Within government, people follow the old rules.
So President Trump did the right thing when he said he wants to privatize air-traffic control.
"Our air traffic control system is stuck, painfully, in the past," said the president. "Billions of tax dollars spent and the many years of delays, we're still stuck with an ancient, broken, antiquated, horrible system that doesn't work."
Trump is right. "Antiquated, horrible" are common descriptions of government monopolies everywhere.
The usual crowd of statists condemned privatization. "Fees will go up, seat size will go down," complained Sen. Chuck Schumer.
He reminds me of the senators who warned that natural gas prices would "skyrocket" if Ronald Reagan lifted price controls. The opposite happened -- prices dropped. Deregulation brought private-sector competition. Competition made all of us better off. I wish Sen. Schumer understood that.
The private plane industry worries about paying higher landing fees. But that'd probably be fair. We small plane users freeload off commercial aviation. Hundreds of passengers on a big jet sometimes wait for a Cessna to land. Everyone should pay user fees to cover costs we impose.
Some resisters of change claim skies will become "chaos" because rival air-traffic control services won't talk to each other.
This is absurd. Privatization is not a risky libertarian experiment. Canada privatized 20 years ago. There's no "chaos." There are fewer delays.
Sixty countries now have forms of user-fee-supported air-traffic control.
Some are developing ways for each plane to use computers keep track of its proximity to other planes and change flight plans to avoid getting too close.
"These countries already use advanced tracking and communications technology that our controllers can only dream about," says the Reason Foundation's Bob Poole.
Poole has researched transportation alternatives for decades. He says, "Upgraded air traffic control technology would mean shorter lines for planes waiting to take off, more direct routes between cities and fewer delays for planes waiting to land. That would result in shorter trip times, less fuel used and fewer emissions."
In the 1980s and '90s, both Democrats and Republicans talked about privatizing air-traffic control. But that stopped after Sept. 11, 2001. When people are scared, they want government in control.
But government control means centralized control that avoids disaster by operating slowly, hyper-cautiously checking routes and runways one at a time instead of adjusting instantaneously as weather or landing conditions change.
In today's world of satellite navigation and digital communications, pilots across America radio the same air-traffic controller to ask for permission to switch flight plans one by one. Controllers still put paper flight strips in little plastic holders and pass them from one controller to another, much like a bartender sliding a beer down a bar. All this human interaction sends ripples of delay through the crowded skies.
Private is better. It's already working elsewhere. There's no reason to keep customers -- and exhausted air-traffic controllers -- trapped in a primitive monopoly.
...Of the utter implosion of our culture, values, decency, and morality.
Oh, and the ascent of ghetto culture, which has affected all demographics.
Don't blame technology. Blame humans.
hi,
“Here at the F.A.A.
wer’re not happy
until you’re unhappy
Biggest lie in aviation,
“Hi, I’m from the F.A.A. and I’m here to help.
Anyone who thinks this is not a critical consideration should keep in mind that GPS technology was migrated from military to civilian use explicitly to deal with major risks associated with radar-based technology. The decisive event that prompted this transition was the downing of that Korean airliner by the Soviet Union in the 1980s after the aircraft had wandered into Soviet airspace.
From the blog: The private plane industry worries about paying higher landing fees. But that’d probably be fair. We small plane users freeload off commercial aviation. Hundreds of passengers on a big jet sometimes wait for a Cessna to land.
An other accurate way of saying this: “Corporate profit seeking planes have to share the runways and skies with aircraft owned by non-profit private citizens, much like profit making semi’s and buses have to share the highways with smaller vehicles owned by private citizens.”
The rise of the ghetto culture is designed to make the civilized culture open to insults, theft, and gang attacks.
Ok, my head hurts enough already and I don't want to get into the Fair Tax vs Flat Tax debate, but does anyone get that that Flat Rate General Aviation Fuel Tax is a Flat Tax that works? Now you can argue the money it takes to keep a Gen-Av field up and running is disproportionate to the revenue, perhaps if Gen-Av was more healthy via more Tort-Reform, Changes to speed certification of new designs or modifications ( FAR 23 ) it would be in a greater state of health.
It is an non-sequitur issue, but it bears discussion, and that is how do we entice a generation of kids on devices to get their faces out of their phones and get interested in peering through a windshield or canopy of a Gen-Av Trainer. If they only knew it is more fun than a phone!
You must not buy anything without going through cumbersome acquisitions regulations.
________________________________________
I remember this one...
when I was in the military we couldn’t go to K-Mart and get a cheap item...we had to order it from the GSA and spend hundreds of dollars...
a 50 cent screw could cost $200 from the GSA and then it might get back ordered for 6 months...
Up until recently, the FAA was the largest purchaser of VACUUM TUBES in the world. This in an age of computers and micro-chips. Trump is as usual..correct. MAGA!
I enjoyed a decade of life living in Alaska back in the day. I was able to talk with older pilots that related stories of aviation pioneering prior to the intervention of the FAA and even back in the CAB days.
I personally flew as a passenger on the "mail plane" to small villages, traveling on a ticket I purchased, scheduling a flight using the OAG (Official Airline Guide).
I was particularly amused when the pilot landed the plane, not at the airstrip about a mile out of town, but on the frozen river right close to the center of town.
Returning to the village years later, I had to endure landing at the airstrip and walking into town. I asked why they didn't land on the river and more, and I heard that FAA told them to quit.
I have flown in scud as a passenger a mere 250 ft. agl (above ground level) when legal flight at 500 ft. was not possible, putting us into the soup.
Alaskans found out what they were capable of doing with their airplanes. The FAA bureaucrats told them they could not.
Yes it does. However, Oshkosh seems to get grayer and grayer. Hoping for a miracle that someday it is the cool thing to do for our "Utes" instead of x y or z that is the cool thing of the moment...
ping
Answer? $ $ and for many reasons. For example, today it would cost $90,000 for what I paid to get "Ace" a flying job. I spent about $30,00 back 22 years ago. Only a "sliver" of YE kids follow up on the free flights the EAA volunteers (me included, just last week) provide. And the main reason is money. I wish I had an answer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.