More than 130 aviation organizations have signed on as supporters of the National Center for the Advancement of Aviation (NCAA) Act of 2020.
The Senate version of the bill (S.3360) was introduced on Feb. 27, 2020. The House version (H.R.8532) was introduced Oct. 7.
If passed into law, the NCAA Act of 2020 will “create an independent center to facilitate collaboration among commercial, general, and military aviation sectors to address the mounting workforce challenges facing the industry.”
Back in February, when the Senate version was announced, an Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA ) story stated, “The NCAA would be a private entity and no general fund taxpayer dollars would be used to support it. The legislation calls for funding the initiative by using a small percentage of the interest that is accrued annually on the taxes and fees collected from users and deposited into the aviation trust fund.”
That got me thinking: Are there any other aviation-related entities or programs that are funded “using a small percentage of interest” from the aviation trust fund? There aren’t, confirmed AOPA’s Jennifer Non.
Diving a bit more into the weeds…
S.3360 states, “FUNDING: In order to carry out this section, notwithstanding any other provision of law, an amount equal to 5% of the interest from investment credited to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund established under such section shall be transferred annually as a direct lump sum payment on the 1st day of October to the Center to carry out this section and shall be available until expended without further act of appropriation.’’
5% of the interest from the AATF? Hmm.
In case you missed it, passenger carrying commercial aviation has taken a bit of a hit in 2020.
According to FlightAware, United States Commercial Airline Traffic (Weekly Average) through Oct. 13 for 2020 was 15,051 flights per day compared to 2019’s 29,163 flights per day. That’s a drop of 48.39%.
The Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF) Fact Sheet (updated April 2020) shows (page 5) that 64.8% of revenue comes from “transportation of persons.”
I could be wrong, but it seems likely the AATF balance may fall from its nearly $18 billion balance at the start of fiscal year 2020. In fact, an April 9, 2020, letter from AOPA, the National Business Aviation Association, Experimental Aircraft Association, and other general aviation advocacy groups to Senate and House leadership states, “It is our understanding that both the AATF cash balance and the current uncommitted balance will be decimated by the end of this fiscal year, causing severe consequences for FAA operations and our aviation system.”
Financial vagary aside, I believe the intent of the NCAA is to use its AATF interest funds to issue grants to organizations that, in turn, fulfill the mission of the intent of the NCAA.
It is hard, if not impossible, to see around corners. When Senators James Inhofe and Tammy Duckworth introduced S.3360 in late February, the global pandemic was yet to be. So it seems odd to me to introduce the House version of the bill at this time. Or maybe that’s the point. Hope that things will, eventually, improve and return to a normal state. So let’s get our ducks in a row today and be ready when things do improve.
From AOPA’s news release: “The NCAA would help develop and deploy a workforce of pilots, aerospace engineers, unmanned aircraft systems operators, aviation maintenance technicians, and others. The center would provide resources to curriculum developers working to integrate science, technology, engineering, and math, leveraging knowledge and expertise among industry sectors. The center would also serve as a central repository for economic and safety data research. In addition, the NCAA would enable greater opportunities for apprenticeships, and help military veterans and others transition to well-paying technical jobs in the aviation industry.”
Scores of university and high school programs are tackling development and deployment of future trained employees. What resources would the center deliver to, for example, AOPA’s STEM-based high school curriculum, that they don’t already have?
The idea of a “central repository for economic and safety data research” is nice in theory, but I see it as yet another data silo. And when I type “military transition to civilian life” into a Google search box I find more than 34 million results.
I’m not cynical by nature, so I feel a bit out of sorts with this column. My normal state is the belief that people far smarter than I do the hard work of sorting out the details for this type of idea.
But I can’t help but wonder shouldn’t this be a market-based idea as opposed to creating a federally-charted non-profit? That’s a question, not a statement.
Or, perhaps the FAA should be authorized to expand its grant-making ability to support this type of mission. After all, a huge part of the AATF is used to issue grants for the purpose of airport construction.
I will never NOT be a proponent of aviation. I’m not objective on the topic of flying. And I’m not ashamed to admit that. But while the aspirational nature of the NCAA is inspiring, it also feels like a very heavy lift.
As of Oct. 13, 2020, neither bill had progressed beyond being introduced. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s a bad thing.
Regardless. Onward.
The NCAA proposal should be regarded with extreme suspicion, in my humble opinion. The wording that Editor Sclair relays to us reeks of Congressional and bureaucratic skullduggery, and implications for abuse of the organization — as a government-funded lobbying organization for… the GOVERNMENT — or for the faction (commercial, military or general aviation) closest to the heart of the overseeing officials and Congressional committees.
While it looks like a neutral aviation “think tank,” or a “congress of aviation organizations” — such entities (especially if government-funded) tend to be come empires of their own, or of certain factions.
We, in general aviation, already have been pushed out of the FAA’s priorities, long ago, by the invasion of commercial aviation industry people. In their revolving-door careers — from the regulated to the regulator and back — they have utterly corrupted the FAA, from a neutral entity to one usually obsessed with prioritizing jetliners over all other aviation. Of course, there was a period, post-911, when it prioritized military over all others.
Yet, the FAA is a highly-visible organization, subject to a lot of public accountability. The NCAA would be a quasi-private organization, and thus able to exploit government money and connections WITHOUT the accompanying transparency and accountability. I suspect that the inevitable (possibly intentional) outcome of the NCAA will be to act as a secretive, government-funded program to push whatever agenda the most-connected power players have in mind. That will obviously leave GA out in the cold.
Yet the NCAA, by its connection to government funding and the founding endorsement of “130 aviation organizations” will have at least the general public IMAGE (illlusion) of legitimacy and aviation-universality that will give it the public credibility to speak, very influentially, on behalf of ALL aviation (including G.A.), regardless of GA’s actual feelings.
We don’t need a government-funded aviation organization that pretends to be the voice or “thnk-tank” of “130 aviation organizations” — while actually being the tool of whatever faction in aviation, or industry, or politics gets a hold on its reins, to steer it.
GA is already severely afflicted by this problem in its major organizations — AOPA, EAA, NBAA, etc. — who have surrendered their financial independence to become dependents of the aircraft manufacturers.
A careful scrutiny of the annual financial reports of the major GA organizations shows that, starting in the 1970s, and accelerating to now, MOST of their money now comes NOT from rank-and-file aviators, but rather from commercial enterprises — through “sponsorships,” “associate memberships,” lavish advertisements in organization magazines, and booths at organization events, etc. — chiefly from aircraft and avionics manufacturers.
GA organizations that pretend to be PILOT ORGANIZATIONS are actually MANUFACTURERS’ REPRESENTATIVES. While they pretend to lobby for PILOTS, they actually are more valuable to MANUFACTURERS. What organization, and its ambitious leadership, can turn down the tempting offer of “support” from an “associate member” who can write 4-figure and 6-figure checks?
Consequently, it should come as no surprise that the GA orgs failed , utterly, to do many things to defend the general aviator — while sometimes even welcoming government or industry initiatives that come at the expense of their own members.
Failed efforts to get truly liberal ultralight rules. Light-sport rules that embraced some of GA’s most unsafe used aircraft, and wildly expensive new craft, while ruling out the much SAFER, simpler, small, AFFORDABLE used singles of Cessna and Piper, for instance.
The orgs largely indifferent attitude towards manufacturers’ production and promotion of aircraft with mediocre or worse safety and efficiency. (How many decades did GA “pilot” and “owner” org’s turn a blind eye to the all-too-frequent design-induced inflight disintegration of old Bonanzas and wooden Mooneys? Fatal Cessna seat rails? ARC avionics failures?)
Yet witness the orgs’ casual acceptance (or feeble token resistance) of harsh rules eroding the functionality of our good used avionics, forcing us to needlessly buy costly new avionics: UHF ELT’s, GPS (as the FAA plans VOR decommissioning), ADS-B-out, etc. Costly, reckless sweeping AD’s fought with token resistance if any. The feckless, half-hearted efforts at containing popcorn TFRs and other excessive restrictions and regs. The gradual slide to user fees that shift all opportunity to airlines. The increasing surrender of low-altitude airspace (even around airports, tacitly) to toy helicopters, and ultimately commercial drones.
Yet, when manufacturers want to be their own judge of what’s safe (replacing FAA inspectors and engineers with their own “designated” approvers), or introduce costly new aircraft or avionics, often poorly concieved — from the six-figure “light sport” planes, to light planes and bizjets radically transformed (glass cockpits, TAA, and autothorttles) without being required to undergo reasonable government testing and re-certification, to the disastrous Boeing 737MAX — the so-called “pilot” and “owner” orgs have given the manufacturers the clear airspace in Washington that they crave.
Do we need a new aviation organization? No. We need a new RULE for aviation organizations: Your name should reflect your sole funding source, and your sole loyalty. Do you hear me AOPA? EAA? NBAA? NAFI? ETC.?
Although initially it sounds like a good idea, I agree that funds from the AATF should not be used to fund the NCAA) Act of 2020.. Too often bills are written without looking into impacts caused in the future. Let’s hope it doesn’t go forward as proposed.
How’s about just forcing to FAA to rededicate itself via formal Legislation to one of it’s original core 1958 Mission Statement tenets … “Promulgation of Aviation.” They very quietly and coyly got that removed, as I understand it. Once again, we need the Congress to tell the FAA what to do and how to do its job.
The FAA budget — as a portion of the DOT’s budget — is huge. When they were folded into the DOT umbrella in the 60’s, things didn’t get better … they got worse with additional layers of bureaucracy in their pipeline. I still fume over Michael Huerta holding multi-year forums at Airventure telling us medical reform is at the DOT level and he couldn’t discuss it legally once it left his hands. Thank God for Sen. Inhofe.
The FAA has become an enormous organization mostly dedicated to enforcement and not promulgation and they don’t do a very good job at that. Its bureaucratic inertia is SO high that steering it in any new direction is nigh on impossible. E.G., just last night I read where the FAA is proposing a fine of $57K against an aviation entity in Murfreesboro, TN because — ostensibly — they didn’t dot the I’s and cross the T’s with respect to drug testing of a small number of employees. “What … the manager of that Company couldn’t tell if he had an employee who was ‘acting funny’ but having a document makes everything OK and paying $57K in fines will make everything better (sic). OR … implementation of Basic Med had to be forced upon them by Sen. Inhofe and the Senate. The Max8 debacle is darned near criminal. I see very little proactive that they do other than sending me copious amounts of emails on the subject of safety or printing AD’s because two airplanes had a problem. That’s important but if there aren’t any pilots or mechanics left … we don’t need them and we can contract out ATC functions very nicely. I’m STILL mad about the EAA having to PAY FAA for ATC services and being held hostage over same until they paid up. I thought we already DID that?
I see others here doing a fine job of inserting infamous quotes SO … how about, “Lead, Follow or just get the hell out of our way!” That we’re flying airplanes averaging 50 years old because new ones cost SO much money is partly the result of the FAA’s intransigent stances on certification of vehicles mostly intended for recreational purposes and on darned near everything else. NCAA won’t do anything to make it better until the parent organization realizes and ACTS upon this problem. NCAA is aimed at the symptom; until we solve the problem … nothing much will change.
The Covid-19 issue is just another substantial razor blade cut in the lifestream of aviation. Meanwhile, over at 800 Independence Ave in DC, no one took a pay cut. Tough NOT to be cynical in such an environment, Ben.
Totally agree with Jim Roberts!! Perhaps some refocus of existing NGO’s would better serve general aviation rather than widening and deepening the DC SWAMP. Let me throw out Ronald Reagan’s statement as well….”I’m with the government and I’m here to help.” We already know where that ends.
Please process this from FASTA USA The Federal Air & Surface Transportation Alliance – why we need a NCAA:
1700 Waterways
1800 Railways
1900 Highways
2000 Flyways
Where NCAA completes the FLYWAYS system that includes NASA SATS + FASTA USA NIFS The National Interstate Flyways System
A primary VMG Vision Mission Goal of the NCAA would be to develop the NIFS
Thank you for these comments. I have had similar thoughts. When I first read about the NCAA, I was somewhat excited — new initiatives related to aviation always spark a flame of excitement in me. But the more I read and thought about it, the more I began to wonder if the NCAA would not simply become yet another bureaucratic entity that will eventually be forced to fight to justify its existence rather than doing actual productive work. I would like to see how the NCAA is substantially different from the FAA and other already-existing aviation-related non-profits. That is, what will it do that the FAA and the non-profit sector is not already doing or are not theoretically capable of doing themselves? Would money and layers of bureaucracy be saved by funneling the proposed source of funding into already-existing entities so that they could develop themselves in the areas proposed to be covered by the NCAA? I’m not against the NCAA; I simply would like more information before I make up my mind about it. Not that my opinion is going to matter anyway. But as a voter and a taxpayer — and as a pilot and an educator — I like to know what’s going on.
Provocative thoughts Ben. Looks to me like another government sinkhole in the road of good intentions. And we all know where that road leads. I can’t fault the feds for the idea, but it looks like unnecessary duplication of efforts of well-grounded aviation organizations (AOPA, EAA, and others).
I can’t imagine a new organization doing as well at this task as current groups, nor doing it nearly as efficiently. And I am definitely opposed to taking funds from the shrinking AATF.
I have many friends in the FAA and other government agencies who are dedicated professionals, but the “system” they are working in is a handicap. As the early 2oth century humorist Will Rogers said, “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.”