I see this morning that AVWeb is conducting a survey on tower closures:

http://surveys.questionpro.com/a/TakeSurvey?id=3464991

Who knows if our input will have any influence on the outcome, but it doesn't hurt to voice our opinions.

Did the survey.

Done.

Done

Done. I feel bad for the people that would lose jobs but I say some should be closed regardless. No reason for Idaho Falls or Pocatello to have a tower.

That was quick to complete.

Looks like Sac Exec KSAC is closing April 7. The wind changes frequenly, and you have to cross other runways when it does... and there some decent corporate traffic. Will make it interesting

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/03/22/sacramento-executive-airport-tower-to-close-on-april-7/

AOPA the toothless tiger?
I see the list is out today. Many towers closing. Including the one at AOPA headquarters, recently completed for millions of dollars.
This seems to underscore reality for me. The NRA has some clout, with a large membership and voting out politicians who cross them.
The few hundred thousand in AOPA don't carry a damn bit of weight. This will have implications down the road that we don't even see today. Not good news.
Better practice your radio skills for those uncontrolled places you refuel. And keep the lights on... there are students bumbling around focused on the glass cockpit TV and not out the window.

emflys wrote:Looks like Sac Exec KSAC is closing April 7. The wind changes frequenly, and you have to cross other runways when it does... and there some decent corporate traffic. Will make it interesting

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/03/22/sacramento-executive-airport-tower-to-close-on-april-7/

I'm with you Em. I don't fly out of KSAC as I used to, but agree it could be a challenging enviroment on a busy day when the wind can't figure out which way to blow, or the kerosene burning crowd decides circling to land just because they have a 15kt tailwind down the ILS ain't important. The sight lines aren't great, and the potential for traffic conflict is big. Most of the remaining fields make sense, but closing Sac Executive might just bite them in the ass.

Flynengr

But they Keep Redding open? And Chico? And close Whiteman.

emflys wrote:But they Keep Redding open? And Chico? And close Whiteman.

Chico, Redding and Stockton have scheduled airline service. Who cares if it is the only traffic they see in any given hour? What a joke.

Flynengr

emflys wrote:But they Keep Redding open? And Chico? And close Whiteman.

I agree with your most of your statement, but have you flown into Redding since IASCO started training the Chinese there? Not uncommon to be seven deep in the pattern and that many waiting to takeoff. Many times I can't understand the radio transmissions and they often fly bomber patterns. I completely agree that the cuts seem to arbitrary, if not vindictive. Yet, we send money to many nations that don't like us but love to sell us their oil, go figure!

KSAC has lower traffic numbers (252 ops/day) than my own field has (KLMO,274 ops/day),or Greeley (392 ops/day), or many other non-towered fields. The freer excercise of common sense may return in the wake of the loss of towers at many airports. A lot of the closures are frankly at definitively snoozer airports where the necessity of a tower is confusing at best.

I'm sure most folks have scratched their head at one point or another at a towered field where controllers change the ATIS several times more often during the day than there are pilots to listen to them.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I've generally been surprised at the remarkable expansion in the number of towers over the years even as the aviation fleet, pilot population, and hours flown have all been in a real decline. This seems to be an important contradiction. It certainly has me bewildered. What am I missing in all this?

lesluther, you've succinctly summed it up as usual.

Thanks. cubscout

I'm surprised FTG is not on that list. Is there more traffic there? I'm with lesuther - towers closing = meh. Now I'm waiting for the list of FSDOs closing.

lesuther wrote:KSAC has lower traffic numbers (252 ops/day) than my own field has (KLMO,274 ops/day),or Greeley (392 ops/day), or many other non-towered fields. The freer excercise of common sense may return in the wake of the loss of towers at many airports. A lot of the closures are frankly at definitively snoozer airports where the necessity of a tower is confusing at best.

I'm sure most folks have scratched their head at one point or another at a towered field where controllers change the ATIS several times more often during the day than there are pilots to listen to them.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I've generally been surprised at the remarkable expansion in the number of towers over the years even as the aviation fleet, pilot population, and hours flown have all been in a real decline. This seems to be an important contradiction. It certainly has me bewildered. What am I missing in all this?

You really have no clue what you are talking about....

Per your source of info, Chico gets 147 operations daily while Stockton has 125! And neither have intersecting runways that you can't see all of the ends of. Or a single ILS for 3 intersecting runways which is set up so that the prevailing wind is on your tail and the normal traffic pattern is launching into you. So explain how it makes sense to keep the towers open at these facilities with very low safety issues while Sac Executive is shuttered?

I fly out of a nontowered airport now with jump planes using intersecting runways regardless of other traffic and it works. I enjoy not having to deal with the tower ops. I have no issue with towers being closed that aren't adding value, but that isn't the case at Executive, since that appears to be what you are commenting on.

You might want to come out and check out the SAC airport and its unique operations before just assuming that the "estimates" for traffic operations you cite for KLMO or KGXY mean something in this case. Did you notice that their data is rounded to the nearest hundred or thousand annual count? Great data! How do you think they are generating those counts for traffic at a nontowered airport? KSAC has significantly more aircraft on the field than either Greeley or Longmont....Not that it really matters, I have no idea what their particular safety issues are.

Flynengr

Did the survey.

flynengr wrote:You might want to come out and check out the SAC airport and its unique operations...

Of course. I've never been to KSAC, and yes, the unfortunate airport layout looks like a cluster. But I'm referring to the way people are claiming that the tower closure at *their* airport will cause airplanes to fall from the sky. I think there are plenty of examples around to show why that's probably not the case. I'm not even saying KSAC specifically doesn't need one. I am saying there are a number of airports with towers that have no need for them. If we added towers to every field with 125 ops per day, things would get absurd pretty quickly (that's something on the order of 20 bucks a landing).

Every time I fly into places like Grand Junction, Bozeman, Glacier, or a lot of other places, I am struck by how expensive their towered ops are compared to the benefit to be gained. I also remember that safety and other practical considerations played no role at all in the decisions to build some of them. I remember when FSS facilities were consolidated, and everyone was gnashing their teeth over how pilots were going to get caught in weather (and perish), yada yada. That talk went away pretty fast, and with our tools today, I doubt there are many today who would consider their flying safety has been critically threatened.

But my basic question is, "Why do we need all these towers when real traffic is going down?".

flynengr wrote:Did you notice that their data is rounded to the nearest hundred or thousand annual count? Great data! How do you think they are generating those counts for traffic at a nontowered airport?

The least significant digits are less than a percent, so it seems fine. As for aircraft ops counting at uncontrolled fields, it's a great point, and one I've asked about with less than confident responses from local or FAA folks. I still don't believe that the fact a tower exists at a field means it must mean that it is needed.

I'll be fine with out them. They won't let me land on the grass for NO good reason. I'm going to be all over that grass the day they close. They will get unemployment too. It will be a short vacation for them. Trust me.

G'Day

Done