I actually got an email response from Senator Warner's office, acknowledging the email and even addressing the subject material and issues -- but not saying which way he would come down on it. Yes, I have also heard and believe about letters rather than emails. It seems that at least sometimes, those email letters are read.
Regarding the letter we sign and send to our employees in DC; any written comments or rants you write after you complete the name address fields are appended to the boilerplate letter, somewhat personalizing the message.
I heard on the news ( and Mark Steyn radio show today) that the IRS has been caught wasting millions on events with extreme hotel bills, perdiem and event contractors that get paid by percentage, which boost their fee when they choose the most expensive hotels (with no regard for taxpayers).
Does the FAA do this?
If details come to light, the public might be alarmed, maybe things will change....
Screw it, cancel the fly in. Just have an air show and charge the general public to attend. That's what it is turning in to anyway. You can park a lot of Cambrys and Civics in the North 40.
Some things could reduce the air traffic peak loads. For example, at Arlington I always arrive at 7:00am to avoid heavy traffic and the tower is closed which allows for no radio sport planes. No radio or early and late evening arrivals at Oshkosh isn't possible, as far I know. This limits arrival time available during the week with air show closure.
A discount could be offered for arrivals several days early. All this could work toward getting by with not much need for additional controllers. (and safer for pilots). I heard a controller say they have had a perfect safety record, but I witnessed at least two crashes on the runway that the controller did not prevent.
I don't see how so many additional controllers can be needed or used anyway. Yeh sure, the airport splits into two sectors, so that means double the number, but how do they need 100 more?
I've heard a bunch of different numbers; 50 controllers on another post, Wikipedia says 64 controllers (plus 11 support people) and your statement of 100 controllers.Originally Posted by Bill Berson
At any given moment, how many positions must be staffed? Wikipedia identifies five working locations...Oshkosh Tower, Fond du Lac tower, Fisk Approach (Ripon) and two mobile departure platforms - MOOCOWs). You say OSH splits into North and South, so that's actually six working locations. Let's say two shifts at North, South, Fisk, the MOOCOWs, and FDL.
Wikipedia says four persons per station at a given time. They're not going to work 7+ days straight, so we have to assume extra crews to permit a day or two off during the week. Let's assume additional staffing to cover when each controller takes his or her 30 minute break every 90 minutes. Let's add two-person overnight shifts at OSH and FDL.
By this rough calculation, it appears that you must have on hand two and a half people for each position that must be staffed. That comes out to 71 people...pretty close to the Wikipedia number. If you assume the four-person shift is sufficient to cover the break times, then it's 53. Still pretty high.
In short, I don't think needing 50-75 controllers is far-fetched, concerning the degree of service being provided
Ron Wanttaja
As for as the FAA being on a budget cutting plan, well we are only one small airport, but in the last 2 years they have repaved and extended the runway from 7000 ' to 8000' and just now are repaving the entire ramp area, which was fine as it was before. Most of the ramp area is for Gen Av use, rather it is corporate jets.
I believe that the FAA is paying virtually all of this cost which I would guess is $5 million to $10 million.
I know of two Denver area airports and Eagle that built new control towers even though they already had towers.
There is plenty of money when it is being spent on corporate jet facilities. We, that is the EAA just doesn't have the same pull.
Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 06-05-2013 at 10:57 PM.
I have no idea how many controllers are needed. But I just checked Airnav and found Oshkosh tower normally operates from 0600-2200 daily (16 hours). Then for Airventure it is open 0800-2000 (12 hours) and with the air show closure of 3-4 hours (I forget) that means the tower operates about 8 hours per day for Airventure compared with 16 hours normally, or half.
But my point was mostly suggesting ideas to keep the airport open more hours. It doesn't matter how many controllers you have if the airport open time is reduced. Why do they close the airport and restrict morning and evening operations?
Last edited by Bill Berson; 06-05-2013 at 10:57 PM. Reason: Correct hours
Good points. Would be interesting to see the guidelines the FAA uses to staff the event.
Ron Wanttaja
I can add a little clarification about the tower hours. First, thanks to all who urged their senators to sign on the letter regarding the FAA fees. We hope to have the final letter and list of signers (I heard it's about 30) in e-Hotline later today.
Now, about the tower. It is open for air traffic from 0600-1430, then the air show waiver from 1430-1830, then open for air traffic again from 1830-2000. With the number of aircraft parked near the runway, it's preferred by us, FAA and the airport manager not to have aircraft landing or taking off at night, which is why the airport closes from 8pm-6am local time. There have been some rare exceptions (I recall three in the 20+ years I've been on staff), but even those have been discouraged in recent years.
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