This is just sad...
http://www.ainonline.com/comment/3796

Landing fees are one thing, but lets take Orange County. If you fly in and pick up a passenger from either FBO, they charge you $52. It works out to $152 a night if you park (includes a $12 CCTV fee). So Santa Monica is a deal.

Kind of sad, when I was at UCLA, the Navy paid for my flights at Kruger Aviation at Santa Monica. Kind of an offset benefit for being spit on daily by the general student body for being in NROTC. There was the classic FBO babe at the desk, very anatomically desirable by primitive man, perfect 7/10 ratio. The Navy paid Kruger $14.50 per hour to rent the Cherokees. My, times have changed.

Even back in the 70's the locals and the airport battled over everything, Charlie Chaplin is spinning in his grave (field was originally Charlie Chaplin Field). Douglas built DC-3's there. I think they should close it. Build more condos, lord knows Santa Monica traffic needs more condos. Then they can enjoy its absence when they have the next big disaster. They can just drive to LAX to get relief supplies. Lets see, last year, went to Venice to get a part from a guy on Craigslist. My Buddy and I decided that we should go to Westwood for old time's sake to have dinner and walk about the campus. From Venice to Westwood is 11 miles. We left Venice at 4:15 pm, got to Westwood at 7:05 pm. I have no idea why any human would want to exist in those conditions. It is kind of like boiling a frog, they never noticed it happening.

Lets hope that other city's and airports we like to access aren't taking notes!

dogpilot wrote: Landing fees are one thing, but lets take Orange County. If you fly in and pick up a passenger from either FBO, they charge you $52. It works out to $152 a night if you park (includes a $12 CCTV fee). ......

I've flown into Orange County/John Wayne via airliner a couple times, and noticed a lot of GA airplanes tied down on one side of the field. Is there not a transient parking area where someone can meet an arriving GA airplane, instead of paying the FBO's?

The tower tracks your tail number and mails you a bill. Every time I land at SMO, I expect a bill in the mail within 2 weeks. Looks like the new rule will effectively double the landing fee for piston singles.

Apparently, this is from the blogs and comments from people misguided enough to fly there now, you must taxi to the FBO's. Then you can request tie down in the County Parking. I suspect you still get the $52 amalgamation of fees, probably a fee to be towed as well. It does reduce the overnight costs, which are rather vague if you go to the FBO sites. I got the fees from comments on the FBO sites from actual, really pissed off, pilots flying in, in their plebeian light aircraft. You have a choice of either paying the overnight fee, or buying a minimum of $8.50 a gallon fuel.

So I will continue to use Oceanside for my trips when I am compelled to visit family & friends still trapped in SoCal. I will charter a Limo to come get me and be well under the fees at SNA. I just feel so silly flying in a top hat and cane, along with the spats, so I meet the dress code for Martin Aviation.

Whiteman, Compton,Torrance, Van Nuys, maybe even Hawthorne have no landing fees. FBO tiedowns maybe. I think Whiteman is a $5 overnight tiedown in transient parking. You can get a lot of places here using our new shiny "Metro" rail system. Not as convenient as a limo, of course, but you can almost afford the limo with themoney you save.

You're right, SMO has been under siege since the mid 1970's when I was a student there at Gunnell Aviation. Our anatomically correct salesgirls at Gunnell were better than your anatomically correct salesgirls at Krueger My instructors used to walk us around the old Douglas DC-3 hangars at the end of the runway too. There was even a Douglas museum on the south side of the field, before they moved all the stuff to the new museum complex on the north side.

So you're old enough to remember that the "twin high-rise" was NOT the same as the "twin towers" in Century City eh?

You think that's bad go drive the toll roads and toll bridges in New York City. I agree with who said, I don't know why anybody would want to live in those areas.

G'Day

OregonMaule wrote:You think that's bad go drive the toll roads and toll bridges in New York City. I agree with who said, I don't know why anybody would want to live in those areas.

G'Day

Very true!

Back in my Motocross days, a trip in the transporter from Hartford, CT to La Plata, MD would be pushing $100.00 in tolls.

Why I thought the NJ Turnpike to be very reasonable. Last time I went through, it was around 2:00 AM, I gave the toll taker a $50 and he gave me back $96 in change at the last booth. Its nice to get a return for your time.

The Twin Towers, you mean the ugly white ones with the dirty pastel blue trim that would loom out of the smog. Of course I remember them. I did love doing my initial solo work up by Pt. Dume, I was living right up on the Ventura County line on PCH. I was kind of like my own traffic report to drive back. Now you couldn't possibly mean the English girl at Kruger, she had the best the Queen could offer. She sparked my interest in Geology and mountains. No hungry infants in England.

I still remember the con artist instructor I had before solo. He was well, lets say really well fed, before the look became fashionable. When I did my solo, the Cherokee literally leaped off the runway about 1,000' before I was ready. No joke actual con artist, on parole. Took one of the other midshipman's Shell credit card and went and charged a bunch of maintenance, batteries and stuff for his car on his card. Then we found out about his tight leash owned by the county. Got a new instructor after that, Thomas kind of vanished.

When we moved to Laguna, McArthur was a dirt road. My dad worked at Aeronutronics and mom worked at Collins Radio, you know, back when SoCal had an Aerospace industry. They still made salt in the Newport back bay and Laguna only had 3 traffic signals. We could hike from the top of the hill in Laguna to Saddleback Mountain and only cross a couple of dirt roads and a railroad track. Nothing stays the same.

I have a few SMO stories too, but I think some of the people are still alive so I better wait until we are around the campfire some evening.

robw56 wrote:This is just sad...
http://www.ainonline.com/comment/3796

Rob,
The plane I fly at work would have a landing fee around $100 as the fee is charged now.
On top of that, I would have to pay $600 to park at Atlantic. That $600 ramp fee would be waived if I purchase 480 gallons of fuel.
Atlantic's advertised price today is $7.97 a gallon.

It's been a few years since I've been there, and if I never go back.....
Mark

I guess that's one way to get rid of an unwanted airport.

I'm not familiar with that area, but based on the posts I've read in this thread, and the contents of the article itself, I presume that residents who came after the airport don't like the fact that they built their homes near an airport. We used to get complaints from similar residents in the area of KOSU when I was flying out of there ten years ago. Someone decided it would be a bright idea to build a home on the approach/departure path to an airport that had been there for something like 60 years at the time, only to complain that airplanes would fly over their house.

I worry about the future of general aviation for the middle class... between the rising costs of fuel and silliness like these landing fees (granted in limited areas for now) it seems like we may be less than a generation away from being priced out of this activity. The rich will always be there, but middle-of-the-road folks like myself may not be.

coloradokevin wrote:I guess that's one way to get rid of an unwanted airport.

I'm not familiar with that area, but based on the posts I've read in this thread, and the contents of the article itself, I presume that residents who came after the airport don't like the fact that they built their homes near an airport. We used to get complaints from similar residents in the area of KOSU when I was flying out of there ten years ago. Someone decided it would be a bright idea to build a home on the approach/departure path to an airport that had been there for something like 60 years at the time, only to complain that airplanes would fly over their house.

I worry about the future of general aviation for the middle class... between the rising costs of fuel and silliness like these landing fees (granted in limited areas for now) it seems like we may be less than a generation away from being priced out of this activity. The rich will always be there, but middle-of-the-road folks like myself may not be.

I am already there, have been for years. Just took awhile to admit it. Sad.