During the past several months an unbelievable amount of public attention has been focused on our national air transportation system. The tragic ValuJet and TWA accidents have turned every American's thoughts to the responsibility of our Federal Aviation Administration in overseeing the safety and security of U.S. aviation. FAA Administrator David R. Hinson has announced that he'll leave office on November 8. FAA Associate Administrator Tony Broderick resigned in the wake of the ValuJet crash, and rumors are flying that he will not be the only casualty.
At the same time, Congress and the White House have turned their attention toward the FAA's inefficiencies and shortcomings. All this turmoil both at the FAA and in Congress has caused many of our important general aviation issues to take a back seat. This is delaying needed changes and the resolution of issues that are important to you as GA pilots. Important legislation stalled in Congress and at the FAA addresses such topics as FAR Part 61 flight training and certification rules, an independent FAA, taking transportation trust funds off budget, airport funding, the Child Safety Act (I call this the "Jessica Bill"), and the very critical collection of aviation excise taxes. It appears that this last item will be resolved before the current Congress adjourns in late September.
Further questions will arise from the air carrier accidents. Your association is watching closely to see who will replace Hinson, Broderick, and others at the FAA lost to the pressures of this situation. Will the White House, through its secretary of transportation, appoint someone as qualified as David Hinson to the top job at the FAA? Will Transportation Secretary Federico Pena remain after the election — and, if so, will he continue to interfere with the FAA on each and every decision?
Even more important are the questions surrounding the legislation AOPA has been battling for the past three years on establishing a new FAA funding mechanism based on direct user fees. Subsequent to the TWA accident, Vice President Al Gore announced the establishment of a blue-ribbon committee to look into the security, safety, and financing of aviation in this country. This comes at a time when we had been encouraged by the reasonable approaches proposed in the House and by the work Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) had done to remove user fees on the Senate side. We thought that the legislation implementing direct user fees was stopped for the time being, but what will this new blue-ribbon panel recommend? How political will its makeup be? Will general aviation be included in this discussion, will the exemption from proposed fees be defined beyond "sport and recreational flying," and will licensing and certification be included?
Last month I had an opportunity to visit Australia, a country about the same physical size as the United States, and where a form of "user fees" was introduced to all of aviation over the past three years. To call public attention to general aviation, AOPA-Australia decided to hold the "First Aussie Bush Fly-In Picnic" at Temora, a small town on the edge of the Outback, located approximately 150 nm from the capital city of Canberra.
I was invited to speak to the 1,500 Australian pilots in attendance. Size is where the comparison with the United States stops, however. Australia has only 18 million people, including 40,000 pilots, compared to our 640,000 aviators; 400 hard-surface runways, against our 8,230; and only 30 airports have control towers, while we have around 700 towered fields. The Australian flight service system has been completely dismantled. No FSS or AFSS on airfields, and telephone access requires pilots to state the specific METARs, TAFs, and other information needed. Weather briefings, strictly required by their regulations, are most often obtained by fax. Airborne updates can be obtained, but only through an en route air traffic system. Most important, direct user fees apply to all flights operating into and out of the terminal airspace around the larger cities — which comprises a majority of the flying.
Rain and showers dominated the weekend, yet the attendance and enthusiasm were unbelievable — especially considering that the only approach for Temora is an NDB with high minimums. Most pilots stayed below the clouds, often at 500 feet above ground in the uninhabited areas, and dodged the rain showers to attend. It amazed me to witness what most of us would term strictly IFR being flown under visual flight rules. I doubt that we would ever have had this kind of turnout on two such dismal days in the States. Except for a Seneca with a malfunctioning nose gear, the fly-in went without incident. It was an eye-opener for me to see what can happen to general aviation as we know it when government places heavy regulation (annual IFR exams, much paperwork for all pilots, U.S. service bulletins that automatically become ADs) and user fees on general aviation.
As our politicians have brought up the funding alternative of user fees, AOPA has consistently responded by indicating that they are nothing more than another tax on GA. It is interesting to note that not only do pilots Down Under pay fees for using a portion of the system, but they also pay 16 cents a liter (that's 60 cents a gallon) as an aviation fuel tax. These insights gained some 10,000 miles from home became a grim reminder to me that nothing is more important to those of us who fly than for AOPA to maintain the safety and integrity of our present system by funding through a broad-based fuel tax, not direct fees for service that very probably would encourage a less-than-safe mode of flight.
Related Articles
