$100-per-flight fee

[dirtstrip]

The tower is kind enough to keep track for you and just send you a bill.

It was incomprehensible to me. I asked a nearby Brit what he thought, he just shrugged and explained that he's never known it to be any different so he just accepts it as part of the game. I asked him about the many grass strips in the area - user fees for landing there too!

How do they keep track of landings at grass airports where there is no tower? Is there so many people in that small country they have nothing to do but stand around and count landings?

[lesuther]

If the $100 per flight thing goes into effect, pork barrel control towers would simply lose their reason to be there in the first place and be decommissioned. I don't see problems with that. All areas of the ATC system would be force to cope with large reductions in demand.

General aviation uses around 20% of all enroute services, and almost 60% of all approach and control tower services. It only appears to contribute a few percent to the costs of these services via fuel surcharges and other user sources.

There is a huge disconnect there- as much as we pay into the system, it only covers a small portion of the prorated system costs.

I'm not saying we should all pony up and pay more- far from it.

The system we have is enormously costly, and does not economically address the needs of most of GA in the first place. The stratospheric expenses of implementing a Cat IIIC ILS for the 50 flights that will use it at the busiest airports in a year simply doesn't offer a service to the GA community- it is a 99.99% commercial exercise.

Other places all over the world have user fees, and they are very well thought out in many cases. That means the real costs associated with heavier and faster aircraft (infrastructure capital expenditures) and low-impact scuttlebutt 152's are considered equitably and reasonably.

My problem is that if we need to charge $100 a flight to cover costs of our current system, then we need a new system....period!

Others have learned to create rational ATC systems to meet a broad array of needs at very low cost (total cost- not just user fee costs). I'm amazed how little American bureaucracy seems to be prepared to accept that someone else might have figured out how to do a thing or two better, grab their ideas, and run with it. Use fuel taxes to maintain our incredible national wealth of public airports. Use user fees to pay for services and you can bet those services will quickly change to meet user's needs in cost and scope to capture revenue.

The proposed system would continue to feed an unresponsive bureaucracy that needs to change with the rest of the world. I don't believe the FAA has the leadership to do that.

[OregonMaule]

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... -user-fees

House Aviation Leaders Repeat to Obama: No User Fees
AINalerts » February 28, 2012

by Paul Lowe
February 28, 2012, 2:40 PM

Bipartisan members of the House of Representatives are circulating a letter to President Obama “expressing our strong opposition” to the proposed $100-per-flight fee on commercial and general aviation operators of turbine aircraft contained in his 2013 budget proposal. The letter was signed by the leaders of the House aviation subcommittee and the chairmen of the General Aviation Caucus, as well as more than 60 other members of Congress.

“Aviation user fees have been proposed several times by different Administrations, both Republican and Democrat,” they wrote. “Congress has repeatedly and overwhelmingly rejected them.”

According to the letter, the fee would have “devastating impact” on commercial and general aviation, as well as the aviation manufacturing industry. “Imposing a $100-per-flight fee on commercial and general aviation is the wrong approach, and we respectfully request that you abandon this idea once and for all,” the lawmakers wrote.

NBAA has also set up a “Contact Congress” page where visitors can send personalized letters to their representatives in Congress about the aviation industry’s “united opposition to user fees.”

[RDUStinson]

I know there's a $100 user fee thread elsewhere, but thought the petition deserved its own. My apologies if admins deem me wrong- please feel free to correct.

Anyway, I think it's important to do whatever we can to stop this thing!

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/explain-detail-its-continued-push-100-segment-aviation-user-fee/jKggNYsT?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

[RDUStinson]

..and if anyone has any luck actually logging in and signing this petition, please let me know how you did it. i log in and get stuck in an infinite loop of nonsense. Maybe it's intentional?

[qmdv]

Even though I wouldn't do it , if I'm requesting VFR flight following from one non-towered airport to another non-towered, what's stopping me from calling out another 182's N# beside my own?

I would have never thought of that. Here is a better pic of Pat's plane. Numbers are more legable than his avatar.


Tim

[c170pete]

The executive branch of the gov't and it's various divisions (FAA, NTSB, OMB) want a user fee that they can change arbitrarily. They cant change a fuel tax as easily. They need congress to do that. It's not just the democrats, President Bush pushed this too. So did John McCain. So will a second term Obama or a first term Romney.

Don't let them have it. They WILL abuse it. That's what governments do. They will take this money and populate an office building with people whose job it is to collect it, then give them salaries and raises and pensions and send them to expensive meetings in Vegas where they get in trouble for not paying their hookers. (OK, I'm mixing stories) This NEW department will burn half of what they collect. Then they will ask for MORE. Then it's $200/flight. (But only $75 for piston planes - consider yourself lucky...) And $20 for an instrument approach. And $20 for flight following, etc.

All of this instead of simply adjusting the ALREADY EXISTING fuel tax by a few pennies for the same revenue. No new expensive collection method needed. Already exists and wont get bigger by changing the tax rate.

Have you ever got a late fee for not paying your fuel tax? NOPE, you pay it when you buy the fuel.

Will you get a late fee for not paying your NEW user fees bill on time? YOU BETCHA.

Sorry to beat this one to death. (I really wish I COULD beat it to death) But if the effin government wants MORE of my money, they should AT LEAST do it in an efficient manner by USING THE SYSTEM THAT EXISTS, not by CREATING A REDUNDANT ONE.

Write to your Senators. Write to your Congressman. If you email them, print it out and put a stamp on it too. Piles of paper mail are more effective than emails.

[soyAnarchisto]

Even though I wouldn't do it , if I'm requesting VFR flight following from one non-towered airport to another non-towered, what's stopping me from calling out another 182's N# beside my own?

The code in your transponder registered to your plane - that's what.

[58Skylane]

Even though I wouldn't do it , if I'm requesting VFR flight following from one non-towered airport to another non-towered, what's stopping me from calling out another 182's N# beside my own?

The code in your transponder registered to your plane - that's what.

Dang it!!

[qmdv]

Even though I wouldn't do it , if I'm requesting VFR flight following from one non-towered airport to another non-towered, what's stopping me from calling out another 182's N# beside my own?

The code in your transponder registered to your plane - that's what.

Dang it!!

Mode "S" yes
Mode "C" no

Tim

[58Skylane]

Tim........ Cool pic by the way, hah?? Nice looking Nosedragger!

[Littlecub]

Bump.
Really, Guys, this is IMPORTANT!!
This is the way the game is played now. We don't play, we loose BIGTIME!
Get you FRIENDS and FAMILY to sign the petition, too.
I'm also turned off by the requirement that I have to sign up with the White House to 'sign' the petition, but, we gotta do what we gotta do!
We can't just join AOPA and RAF-we have to support their efforts, too!

DO IT NOW if you haven't all ready.......

http://www.generalaviationnews.com/2012 ... 5-against/


lc

[Littlecub]

Here is another way to say it!!

The executive branch of the gov't and it's various divisions (FAA, NTSB, OMB) want a user fee that they can change arbitrarily. They cant change a fuel tax as easily. They need congress to do that. It's not just the democrats, President Bush pushed this too. So did John McCain. So will a second term Obama or a first term Romney.

Don't let them have it. They WILL abuse it. That's what governments do. They will take this money and populate an office building with people whose job it is to collect it, then give them salaries and raises and pensions and send them to expensive meetings in Vegas where they get in trouble for not paying their hookers. (OK, I'm mixing stories) This NEW department will burn half of what they collect. Then they will ask for MORE. Then it's $200/flight. (But only $75 for piston planes - consider yourself lucky...) And $20 for an instrument approach. And $20 for flight following, etc.

All of this instead of simply adjusting the ALREADY EXISTING fuel tax by a few pennies for the same revenue. No new expensive collection method needed. Already exists and wont get bigger by changing the tax rate.

Have you ever got a late fee for not paying your fuel tax? NOPE, you pay it when you buy the fuel.

Will you get a late fee for not paying your NEW user fees bill on time? YOU BETCHA.

Sorry to beat this one to death. (I really wish I COULD beat it to death) But if the effin government wants MORE of my money, they should AT LEAST do it in an efficient manner by USING THE SYSTEM THAT EXISTS, not by CREATING A REDUNDANT ONE.

Write to your Senators. Write to your Congressman. If you email them, print it out and put a stamp on it too. Piles of paper mail are more effective than emails.

c170pete

JUST DO IT!

[DBI]

User Fee Doesn't it count that I work from January 1st to May 1st every year to pay my "user fee".