Categories
TDiFH

This Day in FAA History: March 28th

U.S. federal aviation regulation has been captured for nearly a hundred years, with FAA serving aviation interests, nearly always at the expense of the rest of us. Reform is long overdue. Much can be learned by studying FAA’s past history, understanding how history repeats, and identifying opportunities for change. Each day in this series of Posts provides an insightful chronology of FAA History items, from 1926 forward.

All content was extracted from FAA’s own series of history files. The full compilation of ‘FAA History Chronologies’ is found in this PDF (link).

1928: Assistant Secretary of Commerce MacCracken called a special conference of representatives of the Army Air Corps, Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, Weather Bureau, Bureau of Standards, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to study the causes and prevention of ice formation on aircraft, and to discuss the possible development of an instrument to indicate when ice forms on an aircraft in flight.
1933: The Aeronautics Branch gave permission to aircraft engine manufacturers to conduct endurance tests on their own equipment. Before this date, manufacturers seeking a type certificate for new engines had to ship them to the Bureau of Standards, in Washington, D.C., for endurance testing.
1959: At FAA’s Aeronautical Center, Administrator Elwood R. Quesada held a meeting on rulemaking and enforcement attended by nearly 200 regional administrators, regional attorneys, and key Flight Standards personnel. Quesada announced plans for a concentrated aviation safety drive and full use of the agency’s rulemaking powers. The Administrator stated his “4-F” philosophy that FAA enforcement activities must be “firm, fair, fast, and factual.”
1969: The first charter flight from the United States to the Soviet Union departed New York via an Overseas National Airways aircraft. On Jun 6, 1970, Alaska Airlines inaugurated the first of a series of charter flights from Anchorage to Khabarovsk, U.S.S.R.
1978: In an extreme example of opposition to new airports, about 6,000 demonstrators rioted at the new Tokyo Airport near Narita, Japan, on the eve of its scheduled opening, some smashing equipment inside the control tower. Protesting farmers and students had already delayed the airport opening for five years, largely by erecting tall towers along the flight paths. The airport eventually opened on May 20.
1979: Effective this date, FAA required the removal of lithium sulfur dioxide batteries from U.S. civil aircraft. The batteries were used primarily to power emergency locator transmitters, known as ELTs (see Dec 29, 1970). The agency acted because of incidents in which the batteries exploded, burned, or leaked gas that formed corrosive acid. The order affected approximately 60,000 aircraft, most of them privately owned. In September, FAA issued new standards for the batteries, including requirements that they be hermetically sealed and be replaced every two years. The agency ordered users of lithium batteries to reinstall their ELTs by March 28, 1980, but later extended the deadline to Oct 15, 1980, because of a shortage of the improved batteries.
1983: The U.S. launched a weather satellite carrying Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (SARSAT) as part of its equipment, making it the first American satellite capable of receiving Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) signals. SARSAT was developed as a joint project of the U.S., Canada, and France. In parallel with this effort, the U.S.S.R. developed a compatible capability, called COSPAS, incorporated in satellites that they launched in June 1982 and the spring of 1983. The U.S. placed a second satellite with with SARSAT capability in orbit in Dec 1984, providing an optimum system to minimize alerting time from the occurence of an accident. The ELT signals relayed via satellite to the ground allowed the approximate position of the ELT to be determined. Additional satellites with COSPAS/SARSAT were periodically launched to ensure adequate system capability. In 1984, the sponsors of COSPAS and SARSAT signed the first agreement on maintaining the system beyond the 1980s.
2005: FAA formally delayed – until April 6, 2006 – the deadline by which Part 145 repair stations must establish an approved training program. FAA called the one year delay necessary because the agency had not yet released guidance material to help repair stations develop appropriate training programs.
2014: FAA published a revised version of AC No: 20-138D that clarified and added new guidance material to the airworthiness approval process for a variety of GPS systems, including augmented GPS and required navigation (RNAV) equipment for required navigation performance (RNP) operations and baro-Vnav equipment. Several changes covered: the differences between equipment capability and installed limitations; clarification of the database configuration and equipment capability; adding step-down fixes to navigation databases; and a new appendix for demonstrating radius to fix (RF) leg capability and RNP prediction guidance for RNP authorization-required approaches. April 2, 2014: FAA dedicated its new air traffic control facility at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, TX. The 47,500-square-foot terminal radar approach control (TRACON) facility replaced an outdated structure commissioned more than 40 years ago.
2020: FAA issued guidance for states, localities, and territories that had implemented or might consider implementing quarantine, travel restrictions, and screening requirements on individuals entering from certain locations within the United States and territories. The guidance stated there should be coordination with aviation stakeholders 48 hours before a restriction was imposed; air transportation workers, federal aviation and security personnel were exempt from any restrictions; and no measure could be taken to close a federally funded airport without FAA approval.
2021: FAA’s Mike Monroney Center Aeronautical Center announced a three-year MOU with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to study how Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) could best transport cargo, including parcels, at lower altitudes.

Categories
TDiFH

This Day in FAA History: March 27th

U.S. federal aviation regulation has been captured for nearly a hundred years, with FAA serving aviation interests, nearly always at the expense of the rest of us. Reform is long overdue. Much can be learned by studying FAA’s past history, understanding how history repeats, and identifying opportunities for change. Each day in this series of Posts provides an insightful chronology of FAA History items, from 1926 forward.

All content was extracted from FAA’s own series of history files. The full compilation of ‘FAA History Chronologies’ is found in this PDF (link).

1945: An interdepartmental memorandum between the State, War, Navy, and Commerce Departments set up an Air Coordinating Committee (ACC) for the purpose of achieving an integrated and coordinated Federal aviation policy. In May 1946, the ACC established an airspace subcommittee to carry on the work of the Interdepartmental Air Traffic Control Board (IATCB), which had functioned during the war to resolve civil-military airspace-use problems. On Sep 19, 1946, the President formally chartered the ACC. Membership now included the State, War, Navy, Post Office, and Commerce Departments, the Civil Aeronautics Board, and the Bureau of the Budget (nonvoting member), although subsequent executive orders made changes in the ACC’s membership from time to time until the committee was abolished in Oct 1960.

1947: Figures released by the CAB indicated the strong U.S. position in transatlantic air transport. Three American airlines – Pan American, American Overseas, and Trans Continental and Western Air (TWA) – had made 84 percent of the flights and carried 86 percent of the passengers on transatlantic routes during the preceding year.

1964: The severe “Good Friday” earthquake destroyed the Anchorage airport traffic control tower. One FAA employee died in the quake, which registered between 8.5 and 8.7 on the Richter scale. As a result of widespread damage in the Alaska area, Congress authorized FAA to retain jurisdiction for two more years over 15 airports in Alaska. The agency operated these airports under the Alaska Omnibus Act of 1959, which funded the reimbursement of Federal agencies performing services for the new state of Alaska normally performed by state or local governments. Authorization for these funds had been due to expire on Jun 30, 1964, but was extended to Jun 30, 1966 by Public Law 88-311, enacted May 27, 1964.

1967: FAA approved a new 2,000-candlepower runway centerline light to permit operations under visibility as low as 700 feet.

1969: FAA created an Equal Opportunity Staff, headed by a Director of Equal Opportunity, and transferred the equal opportunity and civil rights functions of the Office of Compliance and Security to the new staff. On May 19, 1969, the staff became the Office of Civil Rights. The head of the office, who reported directly to the Administrator, was titled the Director of Civil Rights (later the Assistant Administrator for Civil Rights). The new office’s responsibilities included assuring: that FAA offered equal opportunities to all employees eligible for advancement and all qualified job applicants; that employment practices of FAA contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers, and recipients of FAA grants-in-aid conformed with Federal civil rights regulations; and that FAA programs and activities affecting housing and urban development were consistent with the fair housing provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. FAA’s action was in response to a call by the Secretary of Transportation to “do everything the letter and the spirit of the law provide in order to make equal opportunity a reality.” An Office of Civil Rights had been established in the Office of the Secretary on Dec 14, 1968.

1975: AN FAA DC-3 crashed on takeoff from Boise, Pa., injuring all 11 persons aboard. In determining the probable cause, the National Transportation Safety Board cited the inexperience of the pilot, who was not qualified for that type of aircraft. The pilot, a Regional Director, received a reprimand and 30-day suspension, and was later transferred to another position.

1977: Two Boeing 747s collided on a runway at Tenerife, Canary Islands, under conditions of limited visibility. One of the aircraft, a Pan American jet, was moving down the runway toward an assigned taxiway. The other, belonging to Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM), had been assigned to wait at the end of the same runway. The Dutch crew was approaching the legal flight duty time limit. Their captain apparently misinterpreted a message from the tower as clearance to take off. Disregarding the doubts of a crew member, he began the takeoff roll. The resulting collision killed all 248 persons aboard the KLM jet and 335 of the 396 persons aboard the Pan American. The fatality total of 583 was the worst that had occurred in any aviation accident. Most of the casualties were caused by the intense fires that engulfed both aircraft. The accident stimulated interest in fire safety (see Jun 26, 1978) and in airport surface detection equipment (see Jul 5, 1977).

1980: The Boeing Company revealed plans for flight decks accommodating two-member crews for the fuel-efficient new generation 757 and 767 twin-engine jets. The new decks would include an engine indicating and crew alerting system (EICAS) to centralize all engine displays and provide automatic monitoring of engine operation. (See May 7, 1977 and Aug 26, 1980.)

1990: In a speech to the Aero Club of Washington, Administrator Busey urged all airlines to establish a safety self-audit program. FAA would not penalize airlines for inadvertent violations uncovered by the audits, provided the problem were promptly corrected and reported to the agency. (See Apr 8, 1992.)

1997: Although a section of a wing flap fell off of Delta Boeing 767 near Dallas, the plane landed with no passenger or crew injuries. April 2, FAA ordered inspections of flaps for all 767s with at least 25,000 hours or 10,000 flights.

1997: FAA initiated phase 1 of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) procedures in the North Atlantic. Reducing separation from 2,000 to 1,000 had huge implications for capacity and fuel efficiency in oceanic operations. This was the first reduction of separation over the Atlantic in 40 years. (See April 9, 1997.)

2009: The White House announced its intention to nominate J. Randolph Babbitt for FAA administrator. The President nominated Babbitt on May 11 and the Senate confirmed him on May 21, 2009. He was sworn in as FAA’s sixteenth administrator on June 1, 2009. Babbitt came to FAA from Oliver Wyman, an international management consulting firm where he served as partner. A veteran pilot, Babbitt had been a member of the agency’s Management Advisory Council since 2001. He was the founding partner of Eclat Consulting in 2001, and served as President and CEO until Oliver Wyman acquired Eclat in 2007. Babbitt began his aviation career as a pilot, flying 25 years for Eastern Airlines. A skilled negotiator, he served as President and CEO for the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). Lynne Osmus, who had served as acting administrator, became the acting deputy administrator. (See January 16, 2009; December 4, 2009.)

2012: President Barack Obama nominated acting FAA Administrator Michael Huerta to be FAA administrator for a five-year term. Huerta had been confirmed as the agency’s deputy administrator in June 2010. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a confirmation hearing for Huerta on June 21. The hearing, however, was suspended because Senators needed to cast ballots on a bill. The Committee met on July 31and unanimously voted to send the nomination to the full Senate for a vote. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), however, placed a hold on the nomination until after the presidential elections. He lifted the hold once the elections were over. The U.S. Senate confirmed Huerta for a five-year term as FAA administrator on January 1, 2013. (See December 5, 2011; January 1, 2013.)

2014: Facebook announced it the purchase of Ascenta, a U.K.-based aerospace company for $20 million to help deliver the Internet to underserved areas by building drones, satellites, and lasers. On April 14, Google announced the purchase of Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico company that manufactured high-altitude drones.

2020: President Donald Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Under the $2.2 trillion bill, FAA received $10 billion for its Airport Improvement Program, distributed by formula, to maintain operations at airports across the nation that faced a record drop in passengers. The legislation also included:

Direct grants:

  • $25 billion for commercial airlines.
  • $4 billion for cargo air carriers.
  • $3 billion for contractors who employ baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, cabin cleaners, food service workers and others at airports. Conditions:
  • The aid must “exclusively be used for the continuation of payment of employee wages, salaries and benefits.”
  • Grant recipients cannot cut jobs, pay or benefits through Sept. 30, 2020, and they cannot buy back their stock or pay stock dividends through Sept. 30, 2021.
  • The airlines must maintain service to all the destinations they served on March 1, 2020, through March 1, 2022, which could mean continuing to fly empty or near-empty planes.

Loans and loan guarantees:

  • $25 billion available to passenger airlines.
  • $4 billion for cargo air carriers.
  • $17 billion in loans and loan guarantees to aerospace “businesses critical to maintaining national security,” which industry and congressional sources say in essence means Boeing and its suppliers.

Conditions:

  • The companies taking out the loans are prohibited from buying back stock and paying stock dividends during the lifetime of the loan.
  • There are limits on compensation, bonuses and golden parachutes for executives earning more than $425,000.
  • Recipients of the loans must maintain March 24, 2020, employment levels “to the extent practicable” and under no circumstance can they cut more than 10% of the company’s workforce.
  • The federal government may require an equity stake in the companies as collateral for the loans.

2020: FAA allowed aircraft dispatcher certification course providers to deviate from some standard practices, including instituting or expanding distance-based training for currently enrolled students and suspending course administration.
2023: FAA granted a limited waiver of slot usage requirements “due to post-pandemic effects” at high-density slot-controlled Level 3 airports JFK, LGA, and Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA), and at Newark (EWR), a Level 2 slot facilitated airport. The limited waivers were valid from May 15, 2023, through September 15, 2023, for carriers who identified the slots and timings before April 30. The agency extended the slot and scheduling usage waivers through October 28, 2023.

Categories
Airports

KAPA & KBJC: Updated Monthly Operations Data

A new month is approaching, and residents along the Front Range are continuing to be heavily impacted by excessive flight training.

In the last decade, there has been a big push for consolidation of flight schools. Private Equity is investing in these businesses, and making extra profits by concentrating activities to just a few airports. So, if you happen to live near an airport that draws its students from across the nation and even from Asia and Europe, FAA and industry players feel this is just your poor luck. The schools (and elite investors) are happy, and FAA does a great job enabling this concentrated abuse, while staying mum and not advocating for any balance or mitigation or justice.

This year, is proving to be horribly impactful for people near two towered airports south and west of Denver: Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC), and Centennial Airport (KAPA). This Post provides the latest compilations of monthly operations data for each airport, from January 2017 through September 2023. October’s data is not available until late November, due to FAA delays in sharing data they are fed by all towers every night; also delayed if your local airport authority refuses to get the data from the local tower, and share it ahead of important meetings. So, when monthly airport meetings come up, those concerned citizens who attend are handicapped for lack of current and timely data.

Wouldn’t it be nice if FAA advocated on behalf of the resident population, by urging (or even requiring, as an obligation to receive federal grant monies?) airport authorities to post timely data online ASAP, ahead of events where citizens can engage? Wouldn’t it be nice….

For KAPA, the September 2023 operations changes (versus September 2022) are:

  • Itinerant: down 2%
  • Local: up 41%
  • TOTAL OPS: up 17%

For KBJC, the September 2023 operations changes (versus September 2022) are:

  • Itinerant: up 15%
  • Local: up 9%
  • TOTAL OPS: up 11%

Click on this link to download the KAPA ops data, or this link for the KBJC ops data.

20231030.. ATADS monthly 2017-2023 cn42KAPA
20231030.. ATADS monthly 2017-2023 cn42KBJC
Scroll over the PDF above to activate the PDF viewer controls at the bottom; page-scroll with the arrows in the bottom left corner, or use +/- to zoom in/out.

Categories
AvImpact-Noise

Comments by aiREFORM submitted to the ‘Noise Policy Review’ NPRM-RFC [Docket FAA-2023-0855]

A few hours ahead of the closing deadline, aiREFORM submitted a 37-page PDF to the Federal eRulemaking Portal, for ‘Docket No.: FAA–2023–0855: Request for Comments on the FAA’s Review of the Civil Aviation Noise Policy’. The pages break down as follows:

pages 1-4 Part 1: Summary, & General Concerns
pages 2-8 Part 2: aiREFORM comments to FAA’s 11 numbered questions
pages 9-10 Analysis of 1980-2022 ops at 39 major airports
pages 11-12 May 2015 Press Release – FAA to Re-Evaluate Methods for Measuring Effects of Air Noise
pages 13-37 April 2020 – FAA Report to Congress (25p)

The opening page includes this:

I ask FAA to join me in supporting the Aviation-Impacted Communities Alliance (AICA) comments submitted at Docket No FAA-2023-0855-2206. AICA has worked very hard to connect impacted citizens and organize our concerns about these ongoing (and at some locations expanding) aviation impacts. There are many good and solid proposals offered within the AICA comments.

My own comments follow, and are organized as follows:

    • Part 1: provides a summary & overview of this NPRM-RFC1 document
    • Part 2: provides FAA’s specified questions, and this citizen’s comments and suggestions

Part 1: Summary, & General Concerns

The comments that follow are provided by a retired FAA air traffic controller. During his career, he assisted many local residents toward mitigating aviation impacts. Since retiring, he has spent decades studying aviation impacts and working to assist residents across the nation. What he has found is that his former employer, a federal agency with supreme authority over all regulatory aspects of aviation, is failing. FAA is effectively a captured regulator. FAA is not serving the nation; instead, FAA is serving to enable excessive operations (and impacts) by aviation players, who gain financially with FAA inaction and delays, often aided by current FAA employees who have conflicts of interest due to other non-FAA aviation work.

People are being damaged; communities are being destroyed. This NPRM-RFC is centered on Aviation Noise, which is one of the three primary aviation pollutants (the others being air pollutants, and contamination of ground and water). In 2023, we are seeing FAA’s programs lead to rising noise pollution in many areas, but these two rise above:

At major airline hub airports, where NextGen technologies are automating procedures by both aircraft navigational systems and ATC systems, to tweak flow rates higher, all in the goal of accommodating airlines wanting higher airport capacities. FAA has been aggressively ‘collaborating’ with industry to achieve these goals, despite the fact that airline operations have been declining for more than two decades. Under these changes, thousands of homes are inundated with nearly nonstop stress-inducing noise patterns. Worst-case examples today include JFK, LGA, DCA, SEA, BOS, and many others.

At general aviation airports, where consolidation of flight training programs is creating intensive concentration of closed pattern operations at a select few airports. Private-equity funded, national-scale, flight schools are importing students from across the globe, and profiting from the impacts they impose upon communities below. The Front Range of Colorado is the current worst-case example. Operations at BJC, APA, and a handful of other regional non-towered airports have soared, as have pollutant impacts, in some cases doubling in a few years… yet no environmental analysis or public engagement process preceded any of this growth. On top of this problem, hobbyist pilots and some affiliated with these flight schools and other operators are using social media to identify and then bully the few citizens who try to aid their neighbors by speaking up. The bullying even includes an aviation variant of road-rage: the use of small planes to descend and circle low over homes of known concerned citizens, to intimidate them … and FAA is doing nothing to curtail this bullying. It is as if there were no real regulation by FAA; no accountability for the players who gain profits or just pursue their hobby, while spewing pollutants (often including lead toxins) in the air above our homes.

So here we are, today, offering comments requested by FAA, to assist this huge and deeply-funded agency in their quest of a review of aviation noise policies. Which begs the question: what exactly is the current ‘Aviation Noise Policy’ being reviewed?

To read the rest, click on this link to download the 37-pg PDF, for viewing offline, and feel free to share it onward. Use the embedded PDF below to read the PDF online; dwell on the bottom left corner of the PDF to use up-down arrows (for page scrolling) or to zoom in/out. 20230929.. aiREFORM comments to Dckt FAA–2023–0855(37p)

Categories
Airports

FAA’s Forecast in 2000 Missed by Miles, and Now We Need More ATCs?

Ten days from now, FAA’s current authorization will end. Reauthorization has been ongoing at Congress all of this year. One party rules the House, and they came up with a Reauthorization bill that reads like a Christmas List for general aviation; the other party rules the Senate, and is still not finished with their version. It looks like we are heading for a showdown, and likely an extension or two. If past repeats, we may also see controllers staying at home, but getting paid for that added time-off when all the dust eventually settles.

Watching how poorly the parties function in Congress, and also how poorly our mainstream media fails us by not diving into the details (instead, just repeating past stories and reprinting press releases from FAA, NATCA, A4A, AOPA, etc.), it is easy to start to hunt for more info on the internet. The internet is filled with articles, FAA reports, GAO Testimonies, Congressional hearing transcripts, and much, much more. It is educational, but it is also depressing, seeing how themes and strategies repeat, and then they repeat again.

FAA loves to go to Congress and ask for more money, and commonly they do so by pulling big numbers out of (somewhere) and proclaiming the skies will fall if we do not spend a lot more: hire more controllers, build more runways, fork out billions for ‘capacity enhancement’ technologies like NextGen. But it has become much more sophisticated. All of the key players are constantly ‘co-lobbying’ (although FAA fondly calls it ‘collaborating’) with one another, fusing their advocacies to guide us toward even more waste. Their nests get feathered, despite the fact that FAA is doing a lot less while also using a LOT more automation. It is a racket, and this Post provides some insight into the racketeering co-lobbyists.

Click on this link to download the 4-pg PDF, for viewing offline, and feel free to share it onward.

Use the embedded PDF below to read the PDF online; dwell on the bottom left corner of the PDF to use up-down arrows (for page scrolling) or to zoom in/out.

20230920.. An FAA Forecast, Actual Ops Trends, and do We Need More ATCs (4p)

Categories
AvImpact-Noise

What Do We Need from FAA to Mitigate Aviation Impacts?

This Post returns to the impacts around KAPA, but also discusses JFK Airport (KJFK). These two airports offer an excellent example of the two largest impacts FAA is currently having on residential neighborhoods in the U.S.: ‘concentrated & repetitive’ closed pattern work associated with flight schools at KAPA, and ‘concentrated and repetitive’ arrival and departure streams associated with NextGen procedures and especially intense at KJFK and other larger commercial hub airports.

This Post also attempts to identify key elements of what we, the people, need from the federal regulator in charge of this system and its amplified impacts.

Click on this link to download the 5-pg PDF, for viewing offline, and feel free to share it onward.

20230731.. From the Oceans to the Mountains, What Do We Need from FAA to Mitigate Aviation Impacts (aiREFORM, 5p)cn2101
Scroll over the PDF above to activate the PDF viewer controls at the bottom; page-scroll with the arrows in the bottom left corner, or use +/- to zoom in/out.

Categories
AvImpact-Noise

Flight Training Impacts at KAPA & KBJC: An Analysis of the July 7th Denver Post Article

Below is a PDF copy of the text for a good article, published in the Denver Post, on July 7th. The writer, John Aguilar, provides a deep news compilation on how residents are severely impacted by airport operations at and near Centennial Airport (KAPA), and the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC).

This analysis by aiREFORM goes further. It is a markup of the Post article, with footnotes that expand on (and in a few cases clarify or correct) portions of the article. The goal of this analysis is to aid readers in better understanding the impacts. It is also to help more people navigate past the obstructionism and confusion seeded by FAA, the airport authorities, AOPA, and other aviation parties.

Click on this link to download the 10-pg PDF, for viewing offline at your leisure.

Use the embedded PDF below to read the PDF online; dwell on the bottom left corner of the PDF to use up-down arrows (for page scrolling) or to zoom in/out.

20230707.. Suburban residents battle noise, lead pollution from busy metro Denver airports (J.Aguilar, DenverPost, 10p,markup)cn42-KAPA

Categories
Airports

KAPA: FAA and Mike Fronapfel Need to Be More Transparent

Click on this link to download the 5-pg PDF.

20230511.. FAA and Mike Fronapfel Need to Be More Transparent (zz32KAPA, 5p)

Categories
AvImpact-Noise

In Letter to CACNR, FAA Regional Administrator Grady Stone Concedes Pattern is Elongated but Falsely Claims Traffic Volume is the Reason

Centennial Airport (KAPA, southeast of Denver) is one of the current top five impacting airports in the U.S. These are general aviation impacts, caused by small single-prop and twin-prop planes staying in the pattern and doing touch-and-goes to the west parallel runway (runways 17R/35L).
Back in May 2021, there was a midair collision when a Cirrus arrival to 17R overshot the final approach course (the line extending north of runway 17R); its prop slashed a series of cuts into the top of the fuselage of a KeyLime metroliner on final to land runway 17L. Amazingly, nobody was killed.

It is one thing for a midair to happen far from an airport, when two planes just randomly meet. But, this midair was particularly troubling, because the flights were being controlled by KAPA tower controllers. Through complacency, they failed to actually work the 17R arrival; they failed to apply positive control by extending the Cirrus on the downwind for just a few more seconds, and they failed to assure the pilots actually saw one another.

This failure triggered a reaction by FAA management: complacency was to be checked, and positive control was to be rigorously applied. But, no policies were implemented to actually LIMIT the number of aircraft in the pattern. Thus, abandonment of the near-lethal complacency standard forced KAPA ATC personnel to extend the overfilled 17R pattern to the north, impacting residents below.

Here’s a screencap showing two hours of KAPA flights last December. It is an ugly picture, but the numbing and incessant drone is even uglier. A red box has been added, outlining the region where base turns would happen in a pattern not overfilled with too many flights. Note the current 17R ‘pattern elongation’ extends miles further to the north, even over the reservoir. Note also that, if ATC chose to reduce risks and limit the number of aircraft staying in the 17R pattern, the base turns would be mostly confined to the smaller green box, much closer to the runway… and the impacts on residents would be significantly reduced.

This is the core frustration thousands have with FAA, CACNR, and the airport: the impacts are huge, and nobody is cooperating to mitigate the impacts.

More than two months ago, FAA attended a Centennial Airport Community Noise Roundtable (CACNR) meeting, on February 1, 2023. Questions then produced this 9-page letter from FAA Regional Administrator Grady Stone, to the CACNR Chair, Brad Pierce.

The letter is long and dry and somewhat confusing. Many of the FAA answers refer back to earlier answers, which tends to diminish letter comprehension. To fix this problem, a modified version of the original letter has been created; content has been reformatted, and each question and FAA answer is provided within a table. Reference portions have been added using a smaller red text. Two dominant response ‘themes’ have been highlighted in color: FAA’s declaration that they did not change how the KAPA traffic pattern is managed (oh, really?!?), and FAA’s assertion that they lack authority on many aspects of air traffic management such as making decisions about numbers of operations (yeah, right!!). Use these links to view copies:

  • [link] to view the modified version of the original letter, or
  • [link] to view a PDF copy of the original 9-page letter.

There was a third dominant response ‘theme’ in the FAA letter, and it is a doozy: a false claim that the KAPA traffic pattern has ‘elongated’ due to increased traffic volume. This is interesting. While the bulk of the letter is just repetitive denials by FAA, within the letter FAA does concede REPEATEDLY that, yes, the traffic pattern has elongated. But, instead of also conceding the cause of elongation we all know (reaction to the May 12, 2021 midair collision worked by the KAPA control tower), FAA insists traffic volume is the cause. As the Analysis below clearly shows, FAA is wrong, and FAA is lying.

A PDF copy rebutting FAA’s false claims about increasing traffic volume at KAPA is embedded below; move the cursor to the bottom left corner and use the up-down arrows to scroll through the three pages.

20230413.. Debunking false detail in ANM.RA.G.Stone’s letter, KAPA ops counts are solidly down (zz32KAPA, 3p)
Scroll over the PDF above to activate the PDF viewer controls at the bottom; page-scroll with the arrows in the bottom left corner, or use +/- to zoom in/out.

Categories
UnspinningTheSpin

Rep. Scott Perry talks about ‘Pucker Factor’ while aiding AOPA Dispensing Leaded Fuel Disinformation

Some bizarre disinformation was shared during a dialog at a House Aviation Subcommittee hearing on March 9th. Click on this [link] to Watch the video (4:27).

It is a fairly classic study in how elected officials conflate different issues while grandstanding with statements that make their target audience smile, despite the fact the statements are easily shown to be flat out lies. Regardless of party, we are all so tired of the abuse of technologies to share shreds of information that deceive, leading far too many minimally informed people to dead-end and even dangerous nonfactual opinions. This pattern has become quite entrenched: screw serving those in your actual district; instead, take every opportunity to connect with an elite nation-wide group with the money to donate, if and when they feel you are a crusader for their privileges. Is it any wonder we have become so divided and uncivilized in the last decade?

Attendance was low at a hearing apparently chaired by Rep. Rudy Yakym (R, IN), a House newbie and Vice Chair.

In this case, a Representative from Pennsylvania was blowing dog whistles to his buddies in the aviation community, by leading a dialog that aimed to scare people into thinking small planes are crashing because leaded fuel has been banned at an airport in Santa Clara County. He alludes to a dangerous crash in July 2022, by a small plane departing Reid-Hillview Airport [KRHV] in the eastern neighborhoods of San Jose. The facts of that accident are relatively simple: the pilot had brought his aircraft in for maintenance; days later, he chose to take off with nearly zero fuel, and  his engine died less than a half-mile from the runway end; he crashed (euphemistically a ‘forced landing’) between houses and a schoolyard.

The Representative, Scott Perry (R, PA), used the forum of an aviation subcommittee hearing to initiate a dialog with a guest, Mark Baker, who is the leader of a large aviation lobby, AOPA (Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association). The two are both aviation bosom buddies, as Perry flew helicopters in the Army. The pair spin the accident as a ‘mis-fueling’. Think about that: a pilot knowingly takes off with near-zero fuel, and our elected officials and lobbyists have a public discussion implying it was a fueling error? Perry goes even further to connect it to “…insane Green New Deal woke ideology…,” not once, but repeatedly.

The dialog goes on with Perry waxing about ‘Pucker Factor’ … something he surely understands, given his role in trying to overthrow the last Presidential election results. Google it, and decide for yourself, the quality (or lack thereof) of this particular Representative.

At one point, Baker replies to Perry’s query with a statement, “…but the engine came apart, uh, slightly after takeoff.” That’s not what the NTSB found, not at all. No, Mark, the engine ran out of fuel. That is a risk, enabled by any pilot who ignores a near-empty fuel tank and takes off. Gravity does not give a damn about pilot stupidity, and this guy was lucky to survive (just as residents were lucky he did not kill any others within the impact zone).

A little background:

This hearing was by the Aviation Subcommittee of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure. The Wikipedia page for the subcommittee is not yet updated, so, if you want to investigate the Aviation Subcommittee membership and activities, you will need to use this link to the actual Congressional subcommittee webpage.

AOPA is the principal US lobbyist for general aviation pilots and small-plane owners; been around since 1939, and has been very successful maneuvering electeds to grant huge subsidies to private pilots, while also ensuring FAA serves aviation and protects pilots and airports from people. It is not a stretch to note: AOPA is the NRA for those who own or fly aircraft. And it is a fact that, the number of pilots who fly recreationally and/or solely for personal use are outnumbered roughly 1,000 to 1 by the rest of us (really… less than 0.1% of the population are pilots but not employed as pilots!). This elite group garners the privileges and protections of FAA and Congressional subsidies, to impose lead pollution, air and noise pollution, and damnably inappropriate safety risks upon the much larger civilian population.

Below is a 6-page PDF document compilation, including a transcript of the portion of the hearing (2p), a copy of the NTSB Preliminary Report for the crash (2p), and a third 2-page document, which was testimony submitted to a Part 16 process. This third document is interesting, because it was created as a witness statement but aimed at advocating against the ongoing ban on leaded fuel sales at Reid Hillview Airport. Part 16 is an administrative hearing process in which privileged members of the aviation community are empowered to voice a complaint, and FAA jumps through hoops to accommodate. This particular Part 16 filing was AOPA vs Santa Clara County Airports. Yup, Mark Baker’s AOPA, the small plane and pilot lobbyist, using Part 16 to prolong the right to pollute toxic lead while flying recreationally, because the health of kids and non-aviation residents pales next to the glory of flying. In this context, it is not surprising Baker would happily engage in lies and disinformation, when dialoging with Perry at the March 9th subcommittee hearing.

KRHV.20230320.. 3 docs re N300BH PA28 crash & 09MAR Hearing where Perry & Baker call it a misfuel (6p)