“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” said Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) in a phone interview regarding Air Traffic Control (ATC) privatization during AirVenture 2017.
Inhofe’s 38th annual trip to Oshkosh was delayed due a late vote that required him to remain in Washington, but he eventually joined his son at their regular North 40 camping spot at this year’s show.
Although Inhofe has President Trump’s ear and supports him on many issues, he shares the concerns expressed by the general aviation community regarding the ATC privatization effort that Trump favors.
Due to the efforts of general aviation pilots, he believes the issue is “dead” in the Senate and losing support in the House of Representatives.
Signage and T-shirts seen throughout the AirVenture grounds repeated the message to Congress that ATC is not for sale and “modernize, don’t privatize.”
“It’s because of you that we had the success we’ve had so far,” Inhofe said during a Saturday morning public forum with AirVenture attendees.
He also emphasized that “it’s not over yet” because the House version of the FAA reauthorization bill still includes ATC privatization, although he does not think there are enough votes to move it forward.
When thanked for pushing the Pilots Bill of Rights legislation through Congress last year, Inhofe, 82, confirmed that he is one of the thousands of pilots who have already taken advantage of the new BasicMed option that became available in May.
Inhofe cited further successes expected from new legislation he introduced in the Senate as part of the current FAA Reauthorization Bill. Included are expanded legal options when pilots are faced with an FAA enforcement action and improved funding for infrastructure improvements at GA airports.
In addition, the FAA will be required to publish all NOTAMS in a central, easy to find location.
Inhofe, who has over 11,000 flight hours, is the only active pilot in the Senate. He flies a Cessna 340 twin and an RV-8 (pictured above).
Air Traffic Services are broken, and have been broken for decades. ATS is far more expensive than needed on a “cost per unit separation service” basis. ATS routinely denies relevant access to airspace (I can site countless examples), and ATS imposes unnecessary and extreme inefficiency and delay on all users (I can cite countless examples here also). Hence splitting up the FAA, and reconstituting it from first principles, and in the process separating out and reformulating ATS as a non-profit entity directed by airspace users (and NOT by Congress) would be the best thing that could ever happen to GA. And it also would be best for DoD, for drones, and for air carriers. It is going to change. It must. The current outrageous cost and gross inefficiency situation can never be sustained, …of essentially having grandmother widows on social security in Tulsa subsidizing Inhofe’s flying, in his C340 and RV. And when that eventually happens, you’d better hope that ATS was split out, and FAA completely reformulated, with airspace users in control, and with costs readily and safely reduced eventually, by perhaps an order of magnitude (just like the major technical advances of the cellphone and computer revolutions). Right now, NextGen is heading straight for a $40B failure, just as is the absurdly overspecified and foolishly imposed 2020 ADS-B mandate. There are much better, safer, and less expensive ways, ….if we can first break up FAA, and split out ATS.
This guy is so funny! Zero facts, just rambling about which he knows nothing. Doesn’t even understand that “Shifting air-traffic control from the Federal Aviation Administration to a private corporation would raise the deficit $46 billion over the next decade.” (Cite USA Today). Considering we have the largest, best, OPEN, the state of the art, and free airspace, why destroy it. Along with destroying general aviation. Doing to would be taking billions of dollars of taxpayer property and giving it away to a private corporation. Also, it would remove Congressional oversight and hand it over to the airlines. Every airline ticket would go up in cost. User fees will become the norm like Europe. Only an absolute fool would want that. A fool. Maybe you want the US to become Europe, but I sure don’t. This is the USA. “ManyDecadesGA” is welcome to move to France. The specs for ADS-B are easily met. I believe there is now a sub $1k solution that only requires replacement of a marker light. Two screws and two wires. Everything else is built-in. It takes more effort to fuel the aircraft then to install it!! And FYI, maybe you haven’t raised kids, but you have to set firm deadline to make compliance happen. Typically with “kids”, there are two types. The first type whines, and yells that the deadline isn’t fair and it’s two hard. Then runs off and pouts. Don’t expect much from them. The second type evaluates the situation and conquers the deadline with maturity. It’s more often the second group that become successful in life. What say you, kid?
Dear Mr. Bradley. As a strong GA advocate by our family since the ’30s,… I’d humbly suggest that it perhaps may be you who apparently could benefit from having some real facts and data on this subject? Perhaps you could start by noting the myriad recommendations of most of our recent FAA administrators, as well as even the recent heads of FAA’s ATS function, …dating back to at least President Clinton’s administration,…for this necessary ATS split-out action (including also for the sake of GA’s future survival). Then continue, until you at least understand the basic technical aspects (C-N-S related) of air vehicle separation and separation costs, …down to the seriously adverse consequences of an FAA entirely overspecified and faulty ADS-B NIC and NAC, via 91.225/91.227 with their the applicable related position source TSOs and RTCA DO-260 et. al. specifications, …which incidentally ~185 countries around the world are rightly for the most part rejecting, by NOT following FAA’s lead, …in favor of instead following Canada and Australia’s ADS criteria lead. Then perhaps go to some avionics shops and see the excessive real installed cost of compliance for many aircraft types, for which there will be near ZERO operational payback to users, in terms of ever fixing NextGen’s real issues, or lowering GA’s ultimate ATS related operating costs. Then perhaps, you may be taken more seriously in any rational discourse on this issue?
I don’t know whether ATC privatization is the answer or not, as I can see both sides of the argument? However this I do know, I don’t understand where Bradley came up with the less than $1K ADS-B baloney because I just priced the ADS-B for my 2005 Cessna 182, and it’s $6,500. And that’s if the Garmin 1000 doesn’t require an upgrade first, which they think it will and are looking into it. And this $6,500 was not at a Cessna Service Center where I understand the cost is even higher. I’m not sure I’m going to do it, and may just fly the next two years until it becomes mandatory and stop flying. I know at least four other people giving the same consideration so I predict this ADS-B may decimate the GA aviation industry; which may be the intention for all I know? Apparently GA pilots aren’t breaking down the doors to get it installed (and neither are the airlines so I’ve read) because over 13,000 of the 20,000 $500 rebates the FAA is offering GA pilots who install the system are still available and the deadline is in September.
Well spoken BJS.
In fact some airlines already have authorization to delay installations to at least 2024. DoD will NEVER comply with FAA’s version of ADS-B for many of their aircraft. Some foreign operators (FAR129) have indicated no intention of complying, and if FAA imposes constraints on their operations, their state of registry is poised to retaliate against US operators. Only a small fraction of GA aircraft are equipping (see FAA’s own data), with no hope of comprehensive equipage at the FAA specified levels needed by 2020. Other countries are following Canada and Australia’s lead for ADS-B criteria, and NOT following FAA’s seriously flawed and grossly overspecified criteria, leading to excessive cost, with still inadequate capability for Nextgen for the long term. Instead, countries like Australia are using a much simpler and much less expensive form of ADS-B (not needing SBAS, and using more rational relaxed criteria for NIC and NAC). Bottom line is that regardless of what Mr. Huerta might say at Oshkosh, there is little hope the 2020 deadline will stand, … at least not without crushing many segments of aviation. Few of my aircraft owner friends are even considering equipping with FAA’s version of ADS-B by 2020. The cost for my 4-place single engine airplane (due to my avionics configuration) would likely be even much greater than your realistically cited $6500. Some GA business class multi engine aircraft owners that I know have had to spend deep into 5 or 6 figures to have a rational avionics configuration including ADS-B. While the general idea of ADS-A, ADS-B, and ADS-C are entirely valid and useful, many of us are not going to spend a dime on this seriously faulty FAA version of ADS-B. The ADS-B goal posts will inevitably change, as will Mr. Huerta likely be replaced (perhaps even sooner than later, if the ATS splitout legislation advances).
Privatisation is just another tax collected Everytime you fly