Blakey at SnF (NOT!)

FAA Administrator Marian Blakey was supposed to appear at Sun N Fun
today at 1PM. Unfortunately, she "had a prior commitment" (made last
night?). Instead, she sent a panel of managers to address us.

When I was going through the gate to the flight line, I noticed two
people coming the other way. A guard stopped them and asked to see their
armband. They replied (somewhat arrogantly) that they were "with the
FAA, from Washington." I turned to my companion (a former member of the
astronaut corps and test pilot for the Lunar module) and said "Gee, are
we ever impressed?" My only mistake was not saying it loudly enough for
them to hear.

One thing we learned was that FAA is funding a new tower at LaGuardia at
a cost of $150 million! Is it gold-plated unobtanium? For this Blakey
wants to charge us user fees!

I took along and handed out a list of questions for her and asked the
FAA attendees to make sure that she got a copy:


Questions for Marian Blakey

You have an audience of people here today whose flight experience ranges
from student pilot through airline pilot and astronaut. Here are some
questions that we would like answered:

1. Are you here to listen to our concerns and to act on them, or are you
here to parrot the Administration¹s agenda on User Fees and tell us what
you want us to hear?

2 Have you listened to anybody other than the Air Transport Assn., the
airlines or Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation, who is the chief
shill for user fees?

3. Are you aware of the negative impacts of user fees on personal
aviation in other countries?

4. Have you never heard of "cost of service vs. value of service" as a
public policy?

5. Do you intend to throw general aviation airports to the developer
wolves by cutting off AIP grants? AIP grant conditions help stop
ill-conceived airport closures.

6. Why does the FAA pay for management pilots to fly around in expensive
jets and turboprops for "proficiency" but not have them experience the
effects of their actions, by flying low-end, piston-engined general
aviation aircraft?

7. On your watch, why has the FAA continued incompetently-designed new
systems acquisitions?

8. On your watch, after spending billions of dollars, why have you not
provided severe weather updates to ATC Centers and towers?
(See Christmas Day, 2006 Daytona Beach tornado, where a Comair flight
narrowly missed a tornado that hit the airport.)

9. On your watch, why has the FAA's "new air traffic control concept"
focused so much on airline desires and not on the needs and safety of
the entire flying public?

10. On your watch, why do you continue to fund Chicago¹s airports, after
their egregious misappropriation of FAA funds to support their
Gestapo-like midnight closure of Meigs Field?

11. On your watch, why did you allow Kansas City to close
Richards-Gebauer Airport?

12. Twenty years after the principles of good airspace design were well
established, why is the FAA still incompetent in designing airspace that
general aviation pilots can readily detect and avoid?

13. Don't you think that technical organizations need leaders with
technical competence, not degrees in International Relations?

14. When are you going to to take flying lessons and become a
certificated pilot?