Interesting article on small airport control tower closings due to sequestration ...

[eppur_se_muova]

Front Range Airport tower facing closure due to sequestration cuts
By Kristen Leigh Painter
The Denver Postdenverpost.com

Front Range Airport's tower could close on April 7 due to sequestration cuts.

The administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, Michael Huerta, and the agency's chief operating officer, David Grizzle, sent an open letter March 5 to 189 small airports nationwide stating that 176 of them would stop receiving funding in early April.

All of the threatened airports are part of the FAA's Contract Tower Program — or FCT — which provides funds to hire private contractors.

Each airport had until March 13 to submit a letter, making a case for why it should be spared the budgetary axe.

"The Front Range Airport is serviced with a contract tower, which means that the controllers in the tower are not federal FAA employees," said David Gordon, director of the Colorado Division of Aeronautics. "Instead, they are private contract air traffic controllers."
***
more: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22799017/front-range-airport-tower-facing-closure-due-sequestration#ixzz2NdgDzFB4

[RobertEarl]

1. Good. Enough socialism

There are limits to what we can afford. Supplying babysitters for private airplane pilots is not something America can afford. Let those pilots pull themselves up from their bootstraps.

America is broke. And what better evidence do we need other than this? We can't even afford air-welfare, so say the republicans. And Lawd knows they are always right.

[Major Nikon]

2. We should do away with traffic lights for the same reason

[RobertEarl]

3. Now we're talking

Just think of the few pennies we might save. Problem is car insurance rates would go sky-high. Hmmm, maybe republicans aren't so smart?

[Major Nikon]

4. We could just contract them out to the private sector. Newer models would have coin slots.

Then we'd be living the libertarian dream.

[RobertEarl]

5. Coin slots?

Get real.

If you have a credit card and a bank account, you just drive through them and the computer charges your account each day for each light. Coin slots would only be for those who are not registered or officially recognized by the state. Sign up or sign off.

[wandy]

6. Oh my no. republicans are smart. Car insurance rates would surly go up............

But look at the odds! Their wouldn't be that many additional clams when compared, on a monitory bases, to the increased insurance fees. Car insurance would show a greater profit, just like medical insurance.
Is that not why GOP co. exists?
So what if theirs a few more intersection accidents. So what if an occasional small airplane crashes into houses.
If the GOP co. stockholders can get better return on investment, that's all the better.
Seriously, how else can they pay the salary of their hired representatives?

[RobertEarl]

7. insurance is socialism run by capitalists

Everybody pays, but only the needy get paid back. And the profits are skimmed by the capitalists. If the profits dive, the state socialists allow the rates to be raised to keep profits bubbling. In fact, the state socialists demand they everyone has insurance! Communism!!

[wandy]

8. Everybody pays, but only the needy who can afford lawyers get paid..............

Been their, done that, trust me on this one!
If anyone wishes you good luck by saying 'break a leg'; smack them right then and there.
One of the ways that insurance company's maximize profit is by not paying clams.
Why else would they be so against 'Obama care'?
Why else would they be so opposed to national health care?
Why else would they continue to fund GOP co. ?

Forget socialism, forget communism. Theirs no profit in those old chestnuts.
If you can buy you're self a few Paul Ryans and a few Rand Pauls, you have it made!

And fools will believe their dribble.

[madville]

9. I have flown into a bunch of small airports

Without towers, it's not that big a deal. They still have an established traffic pattern and ground routes. Pilots are trained to fly in uncontrolled air space/traffic patterns.

[LiberalFighter]

10. How many serve a useful and quantitative need?

How many benefit mostly elitists so they don't have to drive or be driven for a long period of time? How many can reach the same destination w/o a plane? How much traffic and how many hours are needed

[haele]

11. They talked about this on the news - CFS in San Diego is concerned -

Our "small airport" in Ramona is the tower that controls the water-carriers and search aircraft for Californa Forestry Service during fire season - it's already looking like it's going to be a dry one, and without the Ramona tower manned on a regular basis, we may end up with the same situation that ended up in a mid-air collision between a lead plane and tanker during the fighting of a 1995 fire that killed four, and several other collisions that occured prior to that before the FAA assumed operational control of the airstrip and require a tower to be built and manned.

These small airports are sometimes the only link to civilization and emergancy services some communities have.
The FAA would not have required a manned tower if the airport was just for a few rich junketeers going out to a resort. And the communities these small airports service often can't afford to contract for even an licenced "on call" controller.

If you or your relatives live in the backcountry on the "old family homestead" (most likely in a trailer, if San Diego county is any indication), these small FAA operated airports may be the only way of getting quick emergancy assistance out to your area...

Haele

[FarCenter]

12. 3 miles southeast of Denver International doesn't sound like an isolated location

located on the northeastern edge of Aurora, Colorado, 19 miles (31 km) east of the city's central business district and three miles (5 km) southeast of Denver International Airport

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_Range_Airport

So how much is FAA paying to provide controllers for about 250 to 300 landings and take offs per day?

[haele]

13. Well, Ramona is only 35 miles from San Diego proper - about 40 from SAN.

I'm sure there's people who think that Lindberg Field (SAN) can also handle all the other air traffic from the five other small commuter airports in the area, and those ports shouldn't need to have a tower.
Look up the PSA crash in San Diego, 1978. Basically, a small cessna flying out of one of the small airports that didn't have a tower nearby wasn't being tracked closely during prime flight time during the day, and clipped a full 707 just five miles from Lindberg field, bringing it down over three neighborhood blocks at 10am - in fact, just four blocks from a house we rented a few years back. The neighborhood was obliterated - there are still bodies that were never recovered.
Again, the FAA requires towers in some small airports due to either traffic or use.
The issue in Denver may be that they are focusing on the large passenger carriers, being as Denver is a major hub, and does not have the controllers to handle the small aircraft that might be coming out of a now unmanned commuter hub three or four miles away.

San Diego International certainly wasn't in 1978.

Haele

[FarCenter]

14. I think that a Cessna that near Lindberg would have a transponder and be tracked by Lindberg control

Doesn't matter where it came from.

[MindPilot]

16. Yes, the Cessna was IFR

It was a student and instructor practicing an instrument approach.

The problem is that general aviation and commercial jets are a really bad mix. Closure of the towers at general aviation airports will mean reduced training and practice opportunities for pilots.

[FarCenter]

15. Front Range's tower only controls ground ops, and below 700 feet. DIA controls the rest.

Front Range Airport - Airspace

Airspace procedures between DIA and FTG are in place because the FTG ATCT has management oversight by FAA Denver TRACON. On an IFR basis FTG runways are treated as if they were an extension of DIA runways.

FTG has a cutout in DIA's 10 nm Class B Airspace. The cutout provides VFR traffic with a means of departing FTG to the East and South without entering Class B restriction. Additionally, DIA's airspace encompasses FTG with a Class E Airspace, which restricts VFR traffic from operating when meteorological conditions are less than 1 mile and restricts VFR aircraft to 700' agl.

http://www.ftg-airport.com/air_space.php

Because of the decline in general aviation, our traffic is approximately 21% of our runway capacity, down from 50% in 1999.

http://www.ftg-airport.com/welcome.php