When the core is "shut-down" to prevent accidental thermal runaway (aka meltdown, or "china-syndrome") the system still contains a rather significant amount of heat for quite a while due to the secondary radioactive products, but this heat is not nearly enough to drive the normal steam turbine dynamos which generate the utility load - it takes a rather large amount of torque to generate megawatts of electric current. Until the heat is removed and the reactor core, fuel rods, and associated secondary decay radio-nucleotides reach a lower level, something needs to provide the power for the cooling pumps, and to ensure that the trapped hydrogen gas (byproduct of fission) is recycled and contained. There are various schemes to create "fail-proof" nuclear reactors, one of which happened to be the Chernobyl design (and we all know how well that one worked). It was supposedly "impossible!" for Cherynobyl to melt down because of the built-in systems, and the smart, but not smart-enough, engineers wanted to test those "fail-proof" systems...
Not that I'm skeptical or anything... but I would expect this to end up being just like the "Privacy Policy" notices we all get from banks and other places, or HIPPA - a nice sounding bit of legislation with so many holes in it, the 100-200 page bill will end up doing nothing but giving jobs to "compliance officers" while actually resulting in less opportunity for the "consumer" to sue or block the data access. Think about how HIPPA actually works, since the insurance company needs to know what the doctor treated you for, your "data" gets sent to them (if not the actual paper chart, a summary of what boil on what limb, or what infectious disease test was used). Expect that car companies will hammer this hard in lobbying...
Those aircraft (at least in the US) that remain registered (an FAA requirement to operate these aircraft) have lots of operating data. See the NALL report (AOPA and others). In general a 100LL 4-cylinder piston aircraft is the workhorse of the GA fleet, used by flight schools and flying clubs. A 1969 Cessna 172 is likely to be a primary trainer (the first aircraft you step in) because the depreciated cost of the airframe and simplicity of the engine/avionics means a flight school can operate it at a "reasonable" cost per hour for the student and not lose their shirts. Ditto for most aircraft made up to about 1995. Go to a flight school and look at the schedule for such an aircraft and you'll probably see appointments noon-to-night because students desperately need hours for their logbooks, and the oldest planes are the cheapest.
Newer aircraft with engines certified for 91-Octane AVGas and such unleaded replacements generally tend to be cost prohibitive to students. Most are owned by owner-operators, and while some are at flight schools, they are rare. The only real change to the market is the use of Jet-A based diesel engines in some of the new Light Sport Aircraft which are expected to take over the trainer market. Unfortunately a change of engine from a 100LL piston model to a diesel is a very expensive transition, complex permitting process, requires the manufacturer to obtain a certificate from the FAA, and causes the owner to throw away a piece of working hardware (the old engine).
Public Use General Aviation airports are not required to allow unfettered access to the ramp area where 100LL is sold. In many cases a fence line exists specifically to control access to the apron and ramp areas because of concerns about aviation security. If the airport has _any_ Scheduled Operations (read airline service) then there is 100% guarantee TSA is present and they demand such a fence line. If a fence line is present, access to the ramp area without a valid ID and permission (given by the Airport Operator) can be a felony. Even at the GA operators like Signature Aviation that pride themselves on letting private aircraft have easy access, EVERY SINGLE PERSON must be escorted by a badge holding employee.
Only very rural areas, or airports that are privately owned and operated are likely these days to have unrestricted access - just ask all of our friends who own homes in "fly-in" lots adjacent to airports that have been informed by the FAA that "cross-fence" access (which they paid for when purchasing their land) is no longer permitted because there is is no way to control that cross-fence movement...
Branson wants to make Virgin Galactic profitable just doing tourism - think about it, for the moment he's got an exclusive market for the sub-orbital hops, and a turn-time/serviceability of SS2 being a day or less. This is a much better revenue stream than the one-a-quarter rocket launches for SpaceX, and is widely scalable at $100k or less a pop. Far more seat occupiers at that rate than the $20M per Dennis Tito ratio for the full-orbit experience.
I got a chance to meet Rutan a few years ago here in Colorado Springs at the USAFA - he spoke passionately to the cadets about the fact that when he started in aerospace the speed/power/altitude curve was bent upwards, and then after the shuttle it bent back over itself into decline (think about the fact that the SR-71 is the fastest aircraft in the world right now, and we haven't built a new one in a LONG time). Then he talked about his work, building year after year on the EZ and other aircraft to become an expert at composite fabrication and aircraft.
The gist of his talk was loosely - `get out there and do it - and this time STAY`. I'm pretty sure if you asked him why Scaled is running so "slowly" you'll get an earful about how much they've learned. What is missing from Scaled is the money and industry savvy that Elon pumped into SpaceX. Scaled was really only made to win the X prize, and even with Brason on-board hyping the hell out of it, Rutan is not a "run flat-out" kind of guy. A big difference between the software engineer mindset (Elon) and the test-pilot "I damn sure hope this plane flys" aerospace engineers.
As soon as you offer the aircraft "for hire" instead of operating your own aircraft (the language is a bit more technical and has to do with whether the pilot is paying his "pro-rata share of costs") you fall under rules as a charter operator - this often (but not always) results in the charter operator using IFR flight plans to follow safety practices. You also cannot fly at or above Flight Level 160 (16,000 ft above mean sea level) under VFR rules.
I realize that aviation fuel is taxed. I do advocate that these taxes be increased so that the necessary regulatory oversight can be self-funding. I fully agree that this is likely to result in less planes in the air.
What's the problem with that? Why do we need to subsidize people flying around?
Who said anything about subsidizing them? If you are asserting that fuel taxes taken in by the US Treasury are less than the cost of ATC, prove it. My assertion is that fuel taxes already cover the operations of the necessary functions of the FAA which are specific to the plane operations, and the remainder of the money spent by the FAA is for net-goods that are consumed by everyone, including people on the ground, so there is no reason why the general tax funds should not be used in addition to the existing fuel taxes. On the other hand, if the aviation community were to agree to increase fuel taxes, then the fuel tax revenues should be locked off from the general fund, or else we end up just like the Social Security "Trust Fund" - getting raided to pay for studies of monkey erections, piss-christ "art" and bridges to no-where.
You are correct - it is in fact a load of bovine excrement. To avoid multiple posts of the same information you'll have to look farther up for more information on how funding works and why the logical induction that follows this service as properly a federal government service is already being paid from fees that come from the users of the service.
This is partially correct, while paid from the same US Treasury, the DoD and the DoT have fully separate budgets, passed in separate legislation on some irregular basis whenever 535 partisan hacks can stop attacking each other long enough to engage in selfish porkbarrel gluttony...
They do too have an ATC system - although theirs is a bit more, punitive than ours, consisting mostly of SAMs. I've never been shot at by ATC for failing to immediately heed instructions...
Congressmen don't fly commercial, they fly military.
Please cite a source for this risible bit of adhomenim. There has been a regular ongoing MASSIVE case of the vapors over the former Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi) having used a US AirForce asset to travel between DC and SFO semi regularly. And you may have noticed in the past few years (if you live in a base-rich area like I do) a lot of military in-uniform traveling commercial. The DOD has pretty much ended the old airlift command where you and your dependents could go anywhere there was an army or air-force base by standing on the tarmac duffel in hand waiting for an open seat.
I also defy you to show me a picture of ANY US Congressman or woman flying in a C-17 or C-140 grunt style - come to Colorado Springs and take a peek inside one of those aircraft during our irregular air shows - these real working aircraft have a canvas bench down one side and up the other, and foldable canvas benches for extra seating if packed to the gills. No overhead reading lights, no in-flight entertainment, and no way to hear your neighbor speaking due to a nearly 100% absence of sound-reducing insulation (and thermal insulation for that matter) - flight in a Airlift aircraft is cold, noisy and dark. At least you dont have to worry about hearing someone snore, you'll be deaf by the end of the flight if you dont wear earplugs!
Sorry, but that little ditty from School House Rock has been inoperative since you were in diapers. The House and Senate each pass their own bills these days and then a committee from each side "reconciles" them to make them look like approximately the same bill, and then each chamber again votes on the reconciled bill (an up/down only, no more amendments) - and the reconciliation process is where the real sausage is made these days.
To understand this nasty piece of work that the leadership of both parties and both houses have foisted on us, see how the PPACA ("Obamacare") was passed.
Your country is not the idyllic constitutional republic anymore, and changing control over the House or the Senate (depending on which party you think will save you) wont make much difference. We've passed the event horizon of DOOM...
Please provide the math to back this assertion up. I'll provide three counter examples.
Currently all aviation users who purchase aviation fuels pay fuel taxes per-gallon, more flights = more gallons = more tax money. Strike one.
So you want to tax aviation more than it already is? Remember the old rule, subsidize what you want more of, tax what you want less. Strike two.
Many nations other than the US have "fee based ATC". The only way to collect these fees is to structure your entire aviation system, from airport to navigation, to pilot training, to aircraft registration around fee collection. Note, all such nations have seen a dramatic DECREASE in the number of airports, and the number of users of these systems, even commercial operators use less of the ATC system by flying larger planes less frequently in order to maximize the number of flight-miles per ATC fee. Strike three.
Also note - that last item is actually the reason many nations in the world sends a large number of students to the US for primary and secondary flight training - we have the most options for them to train, and the best instructors - because they are busy enough to learn the fundamentals well and get to practice them. Fee based nations experience a drought of trained pilots to enter their commercial airlines, and even the US with the most open and inviting aviation system is seeing a strain with the already high cost of flying increasing beyond the means of the average citizen.
Adding more taxes and more fees will only serve to further distance aviation from access to the average American as it has done to the UK and much of europe. Try to find a sorghum farmer with his own airplane in the UK. Compare that to an alfalfa farmer from Kansas - he's not rich but he lives 200 miles from the nearest "metropolis" but 10 miles from a rural airport. If he wants to take his Piper Cherokee from Kansas to Colorado to watch the football game, he can in an hour, that same drive by car would take 6, 8 or 10 hours. Your inconvenience right now due to sequester is NOT a good reason to disenfranchise an ever growing portion of the population the right to affordable transportation, whatever the means.
??? Perhaps on a per-passenger-time-used-by-controller calculation, but if that bizjet is flying into a non-towered airport on VFR rules it is using FAR LESS ATC resources than that Southwest flight with 300 people on it.
Same ATC for everyone. The only benefit a private aircraft has is that when you fly under Part 91 (General Aviation) rules if the weather is clear you can navigate on your own (below the Flight Level altitudes) so long as you agree to do your own "see and avoid" of other aircraft. If you want access to the high altitudes where fuel-efficiency is best, or to fly into or out of a major metropolitan area with a Class B or Class C airspace (every city you can think of you might want to travel to) then you have to interact with the ATC system.
No, "billionaires" are not getting off scott free here.
Also - if you lease service on your aircraft, you are regulated under Part 121, so there goes your nice little easy-peasy see-and-avoid Part 91 "I'z flying meself and mize pet alligator wherzeverz I'z wants to go!" attitude.
TLDR answer: because its the law (both natural and law of man) you gobbering fool!
Real answer: It is added to your ticket price in a number of ways, but I believe the point you are making is that the user of the system should carry the cost. The fallacy here is that the user (the airplane passenger) is only using the airport he leaves from and the one he lands at.
There are several thousand public-use airports around the country (and regretfully an ever shrinking number!), and every single one contributes to the efficiency of the air-transport system even if you never set foot on one. Most are considered "reliever" facilities for metropolitan areas. For example Denver has DIA (the main public airport) and seven major satellite designated reliever facilities: Loveland-Fort Collins, Boulder Municipal, Jefferson County Regional (Rocky Mountain Metropolitan), Front Range Airport, and Centennial Airport. The latter three are the largest and most used, with Front Range servicing some amount of freight traffic as spillover to DIA (and they are in spitting distance of each-other), with JeffCo and Centennial handling a huge volume of private and government aviation traffic. By merely existing these airports take the burden off DIA and ensure that you are not sitting fuming in your 737 Southwest discount fare seat while a "puny" King Air turboprop mozies around the taxiway in front of you. That King Air is a medical relief flight carrying a heart transplant, or a Colorado state official traveling to La Hunta to assist with a hantavirus outbreak, or a business man flying to Goodland Kansas to audit his franchises and ensure payroll is made on-time or work with local officials on safety for a new fertilizer plant. Every single one of these flights has a reason and an economic advantage for the economy, and contributes in many ways.
Its a good thing these airports contribute to the economy, because a typical airline flight from say, DIA (Denver) to SAN (San Diego) operated by a licensed US air carrier interacts with a wide range of law mandated services operated by the FAA. First, before the flight even begins the airline works with the FAA traffic control system to obtain takeoff and landing slots (due the laws of physics, its a bad idea for more than one aircraft to occupy the same physical space at one time). At the departure airport the pilot uses a Flight Service Station to get weather briefing and file a mandatory flight-plan (route, time, aircraft type, souls on board...), at the gate the pilot has to talk to airport ground control (an FAA managed function) to get clearance to move away from the terminal and taxi to the departure runway. If the weather is cold and precip is expected, de-icing (overseen by the FAA, delivered by the airport) is needed. The ground controller hands the pilot off to the departure controller when the taxi is complete, and the departure controller checks with the rest of the ATC system before allowing the plane to takeoff to make sure there is a slot for the plane in the wider system.
Once approved the departure controller safely directs the plane away from the airport environment (avoiding any unexpected same-space issues with incoming aircraft) and then hands the pilot off to an en-route controller, usually the first stage is a Class B area controller for DIA, then a TRACON controller for the sectors between DIA and SAN along the route, sectors have controllers assigned to different blocks of altitudes, and aircraft and separated with incoming and outgoing and through traffic routed to different corridors and different altitudes to avoid that nasty little unexpected intersection.
At the receiving end, a traffic control office has reviewed all incoming and outgoing traffic, at a local, regional, national and even international level to ensure there are not more aircraft slated to reach the incoming corridor to SAN, sometimes this look can even be needed before the DIA aircraft has even landed from it's last flight incoming from somewhere else like ORD.
Keep in mind the FAA has a very large number of duties well beyond the ATC system, they publish charts which are updated every 28 days in some cases, provide the licensing process for pilots and mechanics, write rules for operations and operators, license air carriers and charter operators, certify aircraft and aircraft components, provide a nationwide staff of mechanical work inspectors responsible for checking on safety, AND provide a number of ATC controllers at airports, TRACONs and national traffic control centers. It's probably a combination of both the work rules reducing or eliminating overtime and the furlough of staffs that work 3 shifts a day, 365.25 days a year. ATC controllers are not fungable - an airport tower controller cannot simply walk down the street from DIA airport to the Longmont TRACON and help relieve the staffing, nor can a CENTER controller work in the national traffic-control facility, these jobs are unbelievably different and extremely sensitive to each-other working correctly.
If a Falcon jet on short final at Centennial has to slow down due to minimum separation, the aircraft behind does too, and an aircraft being controlled by Denver Center might not be able to transition from the sector controller to the airport, and another aircraft in a holding pattern over Kansas might not be able to get into the Denver Class B, which might affect a departure from a different airport that was supposed to go to that controller, and so on and so forth sloshing around the ATC system, delaying planes and increasing the workload of each controller until they hit saturation. This is why ATC is designed in an overlapping manner to try to put a buffer in the capacity, but this only works when the number of controllers is "optimum".
In addition, ATC is at an all time maximum stress due to the number of controllers at or near retirement age. Remember the PATCO strike in the 80s - Regan fired them all. The replacement controllers are now all reaching mandatory retirement ages, and training has NOT kept up. Largely due to a series of administrations from Clinton to Bush 43 and now Obama refusing to use "scarce" funds from other priorities (like NASA outreach to the muslim world???!!!!) to fund a program of recruitment and training for ATC. The result is that the FAA is both seeing a crisis of low staffing, high utilization (thank you anemic recovery from 9/11) and a desire not to let this crisis go to waste. While I am inclined to blame Obama, I'm sure there are plenty of FAA mid-level bureaucrats who have been screaming for years for help in ATC recruiting who see the sequester as the perfect time to get them some sweet sweet Congressionally directed monies on an "emergency" basis, the same way the Hurricane Sandy relief bill got porked up.
No, ATC services are paid from the Department of Transportation general fund, authorized by the US House budget, and allocated by the US Senate budget (when they bother to pass one, lately we've been using the last passed budget plus automatic increases....).
A very large chunk of the FAA is offset by the gasoline (100LL and JetA) taxes around $0.20 per gallon (although jet fuel used on commercial aircraft is usually measured in LBS [1 gallon of JetA =~ 6.79lbs] a 737 may use up to 20,000lbs per hour depending on flight phase) which goes to the FAA general fund and also to the Aviation Trust Fund, an mythical entity pushed by the General Aviation caucus to prevent raids on the money to be used for airport improvement (physical assets).
Currently there are no "per-segment" Air Traffic Control fees, and hopefully there never will be, to understand this issue in depth there are competing sides, I prefer the AOPA's briefing available at: http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/userfees.html
I would have to agree with that statement - like most good oligarch/monopolists (Mellon, Carnegie, Ford) in America, the end game is to rehabilitate your image by giving to charities with your iconic name attached. The fact that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving money to stop malaria in Africa and other actions which can dramatically affect suffering of the poorer quartile of the worlds population is some, instead of making art museums, if not sufficient, is significant amelioration for the monopolistic way he ended up with that money. Goading him and others into doing more of this is the point of Nobel prizes.
If we agree on a Nobel nomination at least, take a look a the list of possible options: Physics? No Chemistry? No Literature - I like to read code but I think not Physiology? No Medicine? No Peace? ??? Why not. They seem to have little in the way of standards, rewarding true saints and a few extra-ordinarily bad folks as wel
Nobel laureate would certainly be a good way to reward a man who has done something far more extraordinary than anything BillG or the Steve's ever did - without the benefit of a corporation (note MS needed IBM to be where it is) or a formal product (the Steve's SOLD hardware) and created a world-class operating system.
Not only that, he is still there, still writing code, corralling the cats and making progress in developing, instead of just cashing in.
This is in my not so humble opinion the ultimate leadership by example - and it can and has been applied to thousands of other projects. Richard Stallman may have "invented" open source - Linus made it real for everyone, from greedy businessman to naive undergraduate CS student.
There are two kinds of CS degrees, one tends to be more like a MSCE type degree aimed at getting you employed in a job shop. Typically you'll find these at ITT or University of Phoenix. Frankly, as an employer of CS folks, I can tell you these degrees are not worth the paper they are written on, and they rarely offer job security, they teach you to be a 'cog' instead of an independent thinker.
The second type sounds like your new school. These are more complex and are more like an engineering degree which is about a solid practical basis (tools) and good breadth so you know where to start when some thing new comes along. I dont expect a proper CS graduate to "know" anything or be really ready to work on their own immediately, but I do need the to be able to work at learning the new things independently. The workplace is too varied and complex for college to teach you the important things, but I cannot take the time to spoon feed a neo when there is a deadline bearing down.
The first parent post has another thing exactly right, if you develop your own skills by doing some hobby work, that is where you can get the 'practical' skills you seem to crave. The bonus there is that you can prove to a prospective employer that you have the one thing colleges and trade schools cannot possibly teach: drive. There is absolutely no specific coding technique that can make up for a lack of drive.
Slashdot Mirror
When the core is "shut-down" to prevent accidental thermal runaway (aka meltdown, or "china-syndrome") the system still contains a rather significant amount of heat for quite a while due to the secondary radioactive products, but this heat is not nearly enough to drive the normal steam turbine dynamos which generate the utility load - it takes a rather large amount of torque to generate megawatts of electric current. Until the heat is removed and the reactor core, fuel rods, and associated secondary decay radio-nucleotides reach a lower level, something needs to provide the power for the cooling pumps, and to ensure that the trapped hydrogen gas (byproduct of fission) is recycled and contained. There are various schemes to create "fail-proof" nuclear reactors, one of which happened to be the Chernobyl design (and we all know how well that one worked). It was supposedly "impossible!" for Cherynobyl to melt down because of the built-in systems, and the smart, but not smart-enough, engineers wanted to test those "fail-proof" systems...
Not that I'm skeptical or anything... but I would expect this to end up being just like the "Privacy Policy" notices we all get from banks and other places, or HIPPA - a nice sounding bit of legislation with so many holes in it, the 100-200 page bill will end up doing nothing but giving jobs to "compliance officers" while actually resulting in less opportunity for the "consumer" to sue or block the data access. Think about how HIPPA actually works, since the insurance company needs to know what the doctor treated you for, your "data" gets sent to them (if not the actual paper chart, a summary of what boil on what limb, or what infectious disease test was used). Expect that car companies will hammer this hard in lobbying...
If your wife reads Slashdot this little game could end quite badly... never get between a woman and her chocolate!
Those aircraft (at least in the US) that remain registered (an FAA requirement to operate these aircraft) have lots of operating data. See the NALL report (AOPA and others). In general a 100LL 4-cylinder piston aircraft is the workhorse of the GA fleet, used by flight schools and flying clubs. A 1969 Cessna 172 is likely to be a primary trainer (the first aircraft you step in) because the depreciated cost of the airframe and simplicity of the engine/avionics means a flight school can operate it at a "reasonable" cost per hour for the student and not lose their shirts. Ditto for most aircraft made up to about 1995. Go to a flight school and look at the schedule for such an aircraft and you'll probably see appointments noon-to-night because students desperately need hours for their logbooks, and the oldest planes are the cheapest.
Newer aircraft with engines certified for 91-Octane AVGas and such unleaded replacements generally tend to be cost prohibitive to students. Most are owned by owner-operators, and while some are at flight schools, they are rare. The only real change to the market is the use of Jet-A based diesel engines in some of the new Light Sport Aircraft which are expected to take over the trainer market. Unfortunately a change of engine from a 100LL piston model to a diesel is a very expensive transition, complex permitting process, requires the manufacturer to obtain a certificate from the FAA, and causes the owner to throw away a piece of working hardware (the old engine).
Public Use General Aviation airports are not required to allow unfettered access to the ramp area where 100LL is sold. In many cases a fence line exists specifically to control access to the apron and ramp areas because of concerns about aviation security. If the airport has _any_ Scheduled Operations (read airline service) then there is 100% guarantee TSA is present and they demand such a fence line. If a fence line is present, access to the ramp area without a valid ID and permission (given by the Airport Operator) can be a felony. Even at the GA operators like Signature Aviation that pride themselves on letting private aircraft have easy access, EVERY SINGLE PERSON must be escorted by a badge holding employee.
Only very rural areas, or airports that are privately owned and operated are likely these days to have unrestricted access - just ask all of our friends who own homes in "fly-in" lots adjacent to airports that have been informed by the FAA that "cross-fence" access (which they paid for when purchasing their land) is no longer permitted because there is is no way to control that cross-fence movement...
The only thing "forcing" people to loan money ...
... was "disparate impact" lawsuits.
Fixed that for you.
Branson wants to make Virgin Galactic profitable just doing tourism - think about it, for the moment he's got an exclusive market for the sub-orbital hops, and a turn-time/serviceability of SS2 being a day or less. This is a much better revenue stream than the one-a-quarter rocket launches for SpaceX, and is widely scalable at $100k or less a pop. Far more seat occupiers at that rate than the $20M per Dennis Tito ratio for the full-orbit experience.
I got a chance to meet Rutan a few years ago here in Colorado Springs at the USAFA - he spoke passionately to the cadets about the fact that when he started in aerospace the speed/power/altitude curve was bent upwards, and then after the shuttle it bent back over itself into decline (think about the fact that the SR-71 is the fastest aircraft in the world right now, and we haven't built a new one in a LONG time). Then he talked about his work, building year after year on the EZ and other aircraft to become an expert at composite fabrication and aircraft.
The gist of his talk was loosely - `get out there and do it - and this time STAY`. I'm pretty sure if you asked him why Scaled is running so "slowly" you'll get an earful about how much they've learned. What is missing from Scaled is the money and industry savvy that Elon pumped into SpaceX. Scaled was really only made to win the X prize, and even with Brason on-board hyping the hell out of it, Rutan is not a "run flat-out" kind of guy. A big difference between the software engineer mindset (Elon) and the test-pilot "I damn sure hope this plane flys" aerospace engineers.
As soon as you offer the aircraft "for hire" instead of operating your own aircraft (the language is a bit more technical and has to do with whether the pilot is paying his "pro-rata share of costs") you fall under rules as a charter operator - this often (but not always) results in the charter operator using IFR flight plans to follow safety practices. You also cannot fly at or above Flight Level 160 (16,000 ft above mean sea level) under VFR rules.
I realize that aviation fuel is taxed. I do advocate that these taxes be increased so that the necessary regulatory oversight can be self-funding. I fully agree that this is likely to result in less planes in the air.
What's the problem with that? Why do we need to subsidize people flying around?
Who said anything about subsidizing them? If you are asserting that fuel taxes taken in by the US Treasury are less than the cost of ATC, prove it. My assertion is that fuel taxes already cover the operations of the necessary functions of the FAA which are specific to the plane operations, and the remainder of the money spent by the FAA is for net-goods that are consumed by everyone, including people on the ground, so there is no reason why the general tax funds should not be used in addition to the existing fuel taxes. On the other hand, if the aviation community were to agree to increase fuel taxes, then the fuel tax revenues should be locked off from the general fund, or else we end up just like the Social Security "Trust Fund" - getting raided to pay for studies of monkey erections, piss-christ "art" and bridges to no-where.
You are correct - it is in fact a load of bovine excrement. To avoid multiple posts of the same information you'll have to look farther up for more information on how funding works and why the logical induction that follows this service as properly a federal government service is already being paid from fees that come from the users of the service.
This is partially correct, while paid from the same US Treasury, the DoD and the DoT have fully separate budgets, passed in separate legislation on some irregular basis whenever 535 partisan hacks can stop attacking each other long enough to engage in selfish porkbarrel gluttony...
They do too have an ATC system - although theirs is a bit more, punitive than ours, consisting mostly of SAMs. I've never been shot at by ATC for failing to immediately heed instructions...
Congressmen don't fly commercial, they fly military.
Please cite a source for this risible bit of adhomenim. There has been a regular ongoing MASSIVE case of the vapors over the former Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi) having used a US AirForce asset to travel between DC and SFO semi regularly. And you may have noticed in the past few years (if you live in a base-rich area like I do) a lot of military in-uniform traveling commercial. The DOD has pretty much ended the old airlift command where you and your dependents could go anywhere there was an army or air-force base by standing on the tarmac duffel in hand waiting for an open seat.
I also defy you to show me a picture of ANY US Congressman or woman flying in a C-17 or C-140 grunt style - come to Colorado Springs and take a peek inside one of those aircraft during our irregular air shows - these real working aircraft have a canvas bench down one side and up the other, and foldable canvas benches for extra seating if packed to the gills. No overhead reading lights, no in-flight entertainment, and no way to hear your neighbor speaking due to a nearly 100% absence of sound-reducing insulation (and thermal insulation for that matter) - flight in a Airlift aircraft is cold, noisy and dark. At least you dont have to worry about hearing someone snore, you'll be deaf by the end of the flight if you dont wear earplugs!
Sorry, but that little ditty from School House Rock has been inoperative since you were in diapers. The House and Senate each pass their own bills these days and then a committee from each side "reconciles" them to make them look like approximately the same bill, and then each chamber again votes on the reconciled bill (an up/down only, no more amendments) - and the reconciliation process is where the real sausage is made these days.
To understand this nasty piece of work that the leadership of both parties and both houses have foisted on us, see how the PPACA ("Obamacare") was passed.
Your country is not the idyllic constitutional republic anymore, and changing control over the House or the Senate (depending on which party you think will save you) wont make much difference. We've passed the event horizon of DOOM...
Please provide the math to back this assertion up. I'll provide three counter examples.
Currently all aviation users who purchase aviation fuels pay fuel taxes per-gallon, more flights = more gallons = more tax money. Strike one.
So you want to tax aviation more than it already is? Remember the old rule, subsidize what you want more of, tax what you want less. Strike two.
Many nations other than the US have "fee based ATC". The only way to collect these fees is to structure your entire aviation system, from airport to navigation, to pilot training, to aircraft registration around fee collection. Note, all such nations have seen a dramatic DECREASE in the number of airports, and the number of users of these systems, even commercial operators use less of the ATC system by flying larger planes less frequently in order to maximize the number of flight-miles per ATC fee. Strike three.
Also note - that last item is actually the reason many nations in the world sends a large number of students to the US for primary and secondary flight training - we have the most options for them to train, and the best instructors - because they are busy enough to learn the fundamentals well and get to practice them. Fee based nations experience a drought of trained pilots to enter their commercial airlines, and even the US with the most open and inviting aviation system is seeing a strain with the already high cost of flying increasing beyond the means of the average citizen.
Adding more taxes and more fees will only serve to further distance aviation from access to the average American as it has done to the UK and much of europe. Try to find a sorghum farmer with his own airplane in the UK. Compare that to an alfalfa farmer from Kansas - he's not rich but he lives 200 miles from the nearest "metropolis" but 10 miles from a rural airport. If he wants to take his Piper Cherokee from Kansas to Colorado to watch the football game, he can in an hour, that same drive by car would take 6, 8 or 10 hours. Your inconvenience right now due to sequester is NOT a good reason to disenfranchise an ever growing portion of the population the right to affordable transportation, whatever the means.
??? Perhaps on a per-passenger-time-used-by-controller calculation, but if that bizjet is flying into a non-towered airport on VFR rules it is using FAR LESS ATC resources than that Southwest flight with 300 people on it.
Same ATC for everyone. The only benefit a private aircraft has is that when you fly under Part 91 (General Aviation) rules if the weather is clear you can navigate on your own (below the Flight Level altitudes) so long as you agree to do your own "see and avoid" of other aircraft. If you want access to the high altitudes where fuel-efficiency is best, or to fly into or out of a major metropolitan area with a Class B or Class C airspace (every city you can think of you might want to travel to) then you have to interact with the ATC system.
No, "billionaires" are not getting off scott free here.
Also - if you lease service on your aircraft, you are regulated under Part 121, so there goes your nice little easy-peasy see-and-avoid Part 91 "I'z flying meself and mize pet alligator wherzeverz I'z wants to go!" attitude.
TLDR answer: because its the law (both natural and law of man) you gobbering fool!
Real answer:
It is added to your ticket price in a number of ways, but I believe the point you are making is that the user of the system should carry the cost. The fallacy here is that the user (the airplane passenger) is only using the airport he leaves from and the one he lands at.
There are several thousand public-use airports around the country (and regretfully an ever shrinking number!), and every single one contributes to the efficiency of the air-transport system even if you never set foot on one. Most are considered "reliever" facilities for metropolitan areas. For example Denver has DIA (the main public airport) and seven major satellite designated reliever facilities: Loveland-Fort Collins, Boulder Municipal, Jefferson County Regional (Rocky Mountain Metropolitan), Front Range Airport, and Centennial Airport. The latter three are the largest and most used, with Front Range servicing some amount of freight traffic as spillover to DIA (and they are in spitting distance of each-other), with JeffCo and Centennial handling a huge volume of private and government aviation traffic. By merely existing these airports take the burden off DIA and ensure that you are not sitting fuming in your 737 Southwest discount fare seat while a "puny" King Air turboprop mozies around the taxiway in front of you. That King Air is a medical relief flight carrying a heart transplant, or a Colorado state official traveling to La Hunta to assist with a hantavirus outbreak, or a business man flying to Goodland Kansas to audit his franchises and ensure payroll is made on-time or work with local officials on safety for a new fertilizer plant. Every single one of these flights has a reason and an economic advantage for the economy, and contributes in many ways.
Its a good thing these airports contribute to the economy, because a typical airline flight from say, DIA (Denver) to SAN (San Diego) operated by a licensed US air carrier interacts with a wide range of law mandated services operated by the FAA. First, before the flight even begins the airline works with the FAA traffic control system to obtain takeoff and landing slots (due the laws of physics, its a bad idea for more than one aircraft to occupy the same physical space at one time). At the departure airport the pilot uses a Flight Service Station to get weather briefing and file a mandatory flight-plan (route, time, aircraft type, souls on board...), at the gate the pilot has to talk to airport ground control (an FAA managed function) to get clearance to move away from the terminal and taxi to the departure runway. If the weather is cold and precip is expected, de-icing (overseen by the FAA, delivered by the airport) is needed. The ground controller hands the pilot off to the departure controller when the taxi is complete, and the departure controller checks with the rest of the ATC system before allowing the plane to takeoff to make sure there is a slot for the plane in the wider system.
Once approved the departure controller safely directs the plane away from the airport environment (avoiding any unexpected same-space issues with incoming aircraft) and then hands the pilot off to an en-route controller, usually the first stage is a Class B area controller for DIA, then a TRACON controller for the sectors between DIA and SAN along the route, sectors have controllers assigned to different blocks of altitudes, and aircraft and separated with incoming and outgoing and through traffic routed to different corridors and different altitudes to avoid that nasty little unexpected intersection.
At the receiving end, a traffic control office has reviewed all incoming and outgoing traffic, at a local, regional, national and even international level to ensure there are not more aircraft slated to reach the incoming corridor to SAN, sometimes this look can even be needed before the DIA aircraft has even landed from it's last flight incoming from somewhere else like ORD.
Keep in mind the FAA has a very large number of duties well beyond the ATC system, they publish charts which are updated every 28 days in some cases, provide the licensing process for pilots and mechanics, write rules for operations and operators, license air carriers and charter operators, certify aircraft and aircraft components, provide a nationwide staff of mechanical work inspectors responsible for checking on safety, AND provide a number of ATC controllers at airports, TRACONs and national traffic control centers. It's probably a combination of both the work rules reducing or eliminating overtime and the furlough of staffs that work 3 shifts a day, 365.25 days a year. ATC controllers are not fungable - an airport tower controller cannot simply walk down the street from DIA airport to the Longmont TRACON and help relieve the staffing, nor can a CENTER controller work in the national traffic-control facility, these jobs are unbelievably different and extremely sensitive to each-other working correctly.
If a Falcon jet on short final at Centennial has to slow down due to minimum separation, the aircraft behind does too, and an aircraft being controlled by Denver Center might not be able to transition from the sector controller to the airport, and another aircraft in a holding pattern over Kansas might not be able to get into the Denver Class B, which might affect a departure from a different airport that was supposed to go to that controller, and so on and so forth sloshing around the ATC system, delaying planes and increasing the workload of each controller until they hit saturation. This is why ATC is designed in an overlapping manner to try to put a buffer in the capacity, but this only works when the number of controllers is "optimum".
In addition, ATC is at an all time maximum stress due to the number of controllers at or near retirement age. Remember the PATCO strike in the 80s - Regan fired them all. The replacement controllers are now all reaching mandatory retirement ages, and training has NOT kept up. Largely due to a series of administrations from Clinton to Bush 43 and now Obama refusing to use "scarce" funds from other priorities (like NASA outreach to the muslim world???!!!!) to fund a program of recruitment and training for ATC. The result is that the FAA is both seeing a crisis of low staffing, high utilization (thank you anemic recovery from 9/11) and a desire not to let this crisis go to waste. While I am inclined to blame Obama, I'm sure there are plenty of FAA mid-level bureaucrats who have been screaming for years for help in ATC recruiting who see the sequester as the perfect time to get them some sweet sweet Congressionally directed monies on an "emergency" basis, the same way the Hurricane Sandy relief bill got porked up.
No, ATC services are paid from the Department of Transportation general fund, authorized by the US House budget, and allocated by the US Senate budget (when they bother to pass one, lately we've been using the last passed budget plus automatic increases....).
A very large chunk of the FAA is offset by the gasoline (100LL and JetA) taxes around $0.20 per gallon (although jet fuel used on commercial aircraft is usually measured in LBS [1 gallon of JetA =~ 6.79lbs] a 737 may use up to 20,000lbs per hour depending on flight phase) which goes to the FAA general fund and also to the Aviation Trust Fund, an mythical entity pushed by the General Aviation caucus to prevent raids on the money to be used for airport improvement (physical assets).
Currently there are no "per-segment" Air Traffic Control fees, and hopefully there never will be, to understand this issue in depth there are competing sides, I prefer the AOPA's briefing available at: http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/userfees.html
I would have to agree with that statement - like most good oligarch/monopolists (Mellon, Carnegie, Ford) in America, the end game is to rehabilitate your image by giving to charities with your iconic name attached. The fact that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving money to stop malaria in Africa and other actions which can dramatically affect suffering of the poorer quartile of the worlds population is some, instead of making art museums, if not sufficient, is significant amelioration for the monopolistic way he ended up with that money. Goading him and others into doing more of this is the point of Nobel prizes.
If we agree on a Nobel nomination at least, take a look a the list of possible options:
Physics? No
Chemistry? No
Literature - I like to read code but I think not
Physiology? No
Medicine? No
Peace? ??? Why not. They seem to have little in the way of standards, rewarding true saints and a few extra-ordinarily bad folks as wel
Nobel laureate would certainly be a good way to reward a man who has done something far more extraordinary than anything BillG or the Steve's ever did - without the benefit of a corporation (note MS needed IBM to be where it is) or a formal product (the Steve's SOLD hardware) and created a world-class operating system.
Not only that, he is still there, still writing code, corralling the cats and making progress in developing, instead of just cashing in.
This is in my not so humble opinion the ultimate leadership by example - and it can and has been applied to thousands of other projects. Richard Stallman may have "invented" open source - Linus made it real for everyone, from greedy businessman to naive undergraduate CS student.
There are two kinds of CS degrees, one tends to be more like a MSCE type degree aimed at getting you employed in a job shop. Typically you'll find these at ITT or University of Phoenix. Frankly, as an employer of CS folks, I can tell you these degrees are not worth the paper they are written on, and they rarely offer job security, they teach you to be a 'cog' instead of an independent thinker.
The second type sounds like your new school. These are more complex and are more like an engineering degree which is about a solid practical basis (tools) and good breadth so you know where to start when some thing new comes along. I dont expect a proper CS graduate to "know" anything or be really ready to work on their own immediately, but I do need the to be able to work at learning the new things independently. The workplace is too varied and complex for college to teach you the important things, but I cannot take the time to spoon feed a neo when there is a deadline bearing down.
The first parent post has another thing exactly right, if you develop your own skills by doing some hobby work, that is where you can get the 'practical' skills you seem to crave. The bonus there is that you can prove to a prospective employer that you have the one thing colleges and trade schools cannot possibly teach: drive. There is absolutely no specific coding technique that can make up for a lack of drive.