etterre
Well-Known Member
No, I'm not full of horse-puckey, but I am stringing together a
couple of things from the FAA's draft flight plan. ara:
Here's the address for the survey:
http://web.mit.edu/~elester/www/online_survey/
The outline of the FAA's argument is this:
1. The number of people flying will dramatically increase over the
next few years (not sure I really believe this, but nobody seems to
argue against it)
2. ATC is using antiquated equipment (no argument there) and
antiquated procedures (sorry - don't believe that one) so they can't
handle much more traffic (errmmm, maybe if you didn't have a contract
fight going on and you hired some more controllers...)
3. Due to the above, delays and congestion will increase.
4. Technology is the solution! Nextgen will save us all!
5. But we don't have the money.
6. But if we had a "stable revenue stream" from user fees, then we
would either:
A. Have the money to fund Nextgen.
B. Have the ability to sell bonds to fund Nextgen because
investors don't like government bonds from a tax-funded department.
The missing piece is that ADS-B == NextGen (it's in the "flight plan"
that was recently made available on the faa.gov site). So why do
they keep talking about NextGen? Because the "magic ADS-B box" costs
about $15,000. Yeah, the box is pretty cool... but I can't imagine
putting one in a Piper Cub... and the survey does include
some "fishing questions" about a mandated install...
couple of things from the FAA's draft flight plan. ara:
Here's the address for the survey:
http://web.mit.edu/~elester/www/online_survey/
The outline of the FAA's argument is this:
1. The number of people flying will dramatically increase over the
next few years (not sure I really believe this, but nobody seems to
argue against it)
2. ATC is using antiquated equipment (no argument there) and
antiquated procedures (sorry - don't believe that one) so they can't
handle much more traffic (errmmm, maybe if you didn't have a contract
fight going on and you hired some more controllers...)
3. Due to the above, delays and congestion will increase.
4. Technology is the solution! Nextgen will save us all!
5. But we don't have the money.
6. But if we had a "stable revenue stream" from user fees, then we
would either:
A. Have the money to fund Nextgen.
B. Have the ability to sell bonds to fund Nextgen because
investors don't like government bonds from a tax-funded department.
The missing piece is that ADS-B == NextGen (it's in the "flight plan"
that was recently made available on the faa.gov site). So why do
they keep talking about NextGen? Because the "magic ADS-B box" costs
about $15,000. Yeah, the box is pretty cool... but I can't imagine
putting one in a Piper Cub... and the survey does include
some "fishing questions" about a mandated install...