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« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2017, 04:11:09 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Digest 6-12-2017
From The Federalist Patriot
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This makes a lot of sense: Both ATC and NAS (sequencing and routing) are really services provided to users of the nation’s airspace. Privatizing them — as more than 50 other nations worldwide have already done — is the best way to ensure funds provided for such services are used efficiently. Meanwhile, the FAA would still oversee the national safety standards the privatized component would be required to meet.
The alternative of course is the status quo: taxpayer-supported FAA waste. We’ve endured that clown act for roughly half a century now. Alluding to this fact, the president bluntly noted, “We live in a modern age, but our air traffic control system is stuck, painfully, in the past. … At a time when every passenger has GPS technology in their pockets, our air traffic control system still runs on radar and ground-based radio systems that they don’t even make anymore — they can’t even fix anymore — and many controllers must use slips of paper to track our thousands and thousands of planes that are up in the air.”
By “radar” the president was referring to the vast junkyard of antiquated ATC radars strewn about the U.S., and by “radio” he was alluding to the fact pilots must still talk to — versus datalink, text or auto-uplink/downlink information with — ATC controllers. That last fact may sound trivial, but as more transmitters from more aircraft crowd the limited communication channels remaining, less clearly communicated instructions and readbacks will be received by end-listeners. The result is, and will continue to be, delays, confusion and potentially dangerous situations, all generated from comm-crowding on inefficient voice channels. In contrast, silent, non-“comm-jammed” data-linked paths and text-driven instructions are much more efficient and clear, yet the U.S. is decades behind other nations in these capabilities.
The con-side argument to fee-based, non-profit-privatized ATC/NAS services is that the “little guy” — the private or recreational pilot — might get crushed by “fee-based” ATC/NAS services. The concern is understandable, but misplaced.
First, and frankly, it’s an argument based in emotion and fear, not in fact. The non-profit board will be composed of stakeholders, including those from general aviation. In fact, in the proposed board the air transport industry will hold no more than two of the 12 seats.
Second, no evidence has surfaced among any of the 50+ nations that have already modernized their ATC/NAS services that general aviation has suffered from the fee-based services themselves. That’s notwithstanding vague assertions about general aviation users “getting squeezed,” or anecdotal claims citing one country’s practices and then generalizing those practices to the U.S. using apples-and-oranges analogies.
Many in the general aviation community do not want user-based fees because they believe the current system “works fine” — for them. As Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) President and CEO Mark Baker put it, “The U.S. has a very safe air traffic system today and we don’t hear complaints from our nearly 350,000 members about it.” But this statement dismisses the root issue: an outdated system, which currently causes the loss of billions of dollars in inefficiencies across the entire span of the most densely populated airspace system on the planet.
Of course, the “devil’s in the details,” but if the current, bloated FAA budget — which has doubled in recent years while maintaining the same number of air traffic control facilities — could be slashed in favor of a more efficient, higher-technology, privatized system, benefits would flow to every airspace user, not just “the big guys.” Yes, general aviation would then be held, like everything else, to fee-based use. But many other taxes, fees and costs would disappear virtually overnight — as they have in Canada and Europe. Canada, particularly, is instructive, as it enjoys ATC fees among the lowest in the world.
Were U.S. airspace not the most extensively used on Earth, perhaps such an outdated, Soviet-class bureaucracy as the FAA’s would be adequate to maintain and modernize U.S. ATC and NAS services. But considering the fact that almost 100,000 flights carry roughly two-million passengers across U.S. skies each day, yesterday’s systems surely cannot meet today’s demands — let alone tomorrow’s. Congress needs to approve privatizing U.S. ATC/NAS services. The sooner, the better.
Editor’s note: Bastiat is a retired fighter pilot, and is a pilot with a major airline. He holds advanced FAA instructor certifications and was the Chief Pilot at an FAA-certified flight school. He’s been a pilot for over 30 years.
MORE ANALYSIS FROM THE PATRIOT POST
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How Many Other ‘Reality Winners’ Infest the NSA?24 — Something truly rotten is going on at the National Security Agency. What kind of vetting are they actually doing?
30 Years Later, the Lessons of ‘Tear Down This Wall’25 — On this day in 1987, Reagan gave his seminal speech at the Brandenburg Gate — defying tyranny with the message of Liberty.
Qatar’s Diplomatic Crisis, Explained26 — How does it affect the U.S.? AEI’s Michael Rubin provides a concise summary.
BEST OF RIGHT OPINION
Tony Perkins: Music Case a Major Key for Religious Liberty27
Peggy Noonan: Hillary Lacks Remorse of Conscience28
George Will: Get the Shovels in the Ground29
For more, visit Right Opinion30.
OPINION IN BRIEF
Peggy Noonan: “[Hillary Clinton’s] public statements since defeat have been malignant little masterpieces of victimhood-claiming, blame-shifting and unhelpful accusation. They deserve censure. … The truth is Bernie Sanders destroyed Mrs. Clinton’s chance of winning by almost knocking her off, and in the process revealing her party’s base had changed. Her plodding, charmless, insincere style of campaigning defeated her. Bad decisions in her campaign approach to the battleground states did it; a long history of personal scandals did it; fat Wall Street speeches did it; the Clinton Foundation’s bloat and chicanery did it — and most of all the sense that she ultimately stands for nothing but Hillary did it. … The worst part is that she insulted her own country by both stating and implying that America is full of knuckle-dragging, deplorable oafs who are averse to powerful women and would never elect one president. Has she not learned anything? Does she never think Britain had Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Theresa May now, that Germany has had as its leader Angela Merkel since 2005? Is America really more backward, narrow and hate-filled toward women than those countries? Or was Mrs. Clinton simply the wrong woman, and the wrong candidate?”
SHORT CUTS
The Gipper: “We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him.”
For the record: “What makes it egregious is the fact — and I think it’s obvious that it is a fact — that the attorney general of the United States was adjusting the way the department talked about its business so as to coincide with the way the Clinton campaign talked about that business. In other words, it made the Department of Justice essentially an arm of the Clinton campaign.” —former Attorney General Michael Mukasey on James Comey’s revelation2 that Lynch wanted him to call the Clinton email investigation a “matter”
A blind squirrel finds a nut: “I would have a queasy feeling too, though, to be candid with you. I think we need to know more about [Loretta Lynch’s protecting Clinton], and there’s only one way to know about it, and that’s to have the Judiciary Committee take a look at that.” —Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Wishful thinking: “I wish I had flown in from the White House, but I’m just as happy to be here anyway.” —Hillary Clinton at Medgar Evers College
Friendly fire: “The Clinton campaign did not spend their money on white workers, and they did not spend it on people of color. They spent it on themselves. Let’s be honest. They took a billion dollars — a billion dollars — and set it on fire, and called it a ‘campaign.’ That wasn’t a campaign.” —Van Jones
Alpha Jackass: “As far as American leadership is concerned, yes.” —Sen. John McCain suggesting Obama’s “leadership” style is preferable to Trump’s
Late-night humor: “An 88-year-old woman has set a new record for oldest female to stand on the wing of a flying plane. It sounds dangerous, but it’s actually the safest place to be when you fly United.” —Seth Meyers
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Managing Editor Nate Jackson
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