Quote of the Week: "They [noise levels] are not significant, because they are in the 45 to 60 noise level," explained FAA spokesman Jim Peters. "The increase is light to moderate." from a story this week on the FAA downplaying impacts from the "update" of their eastern region Airspace Redesign scheme
Aviation Conspiracy Newsletter #423.........................................................................April 8, 2007 Past newsletters can be accessed at: http://pages.prodigy.net/rockaway/ACNewsmenu.htm The PASSUR airport flight tracking system at many major U.S. airports http://www.passur.com/sites.htm (you must have Java installed to view it). If you want to get the newsletter sent to you every week, sign up to AviationWatch. Bill Mulcahy rockaway@prodigy.net
FAA Issues Airspace Redesign "Update!!!"
As
Bill
Sees It: (Editorial): FAA
Issues "Clear" Routing Update And Video
Of Airspace Redesign Plan Changes: I was pleased
to see that the FAA issued their latest New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia
Airspace Redesign "update"
showing clear aerial pictures and routing maps and routes of what they intend to
do (see LaGuardia Airport aerial picture on the right). I don't know what
prompted the dramatic change. Perhaps it was my weekly display of some of their
outrageous and obscure routing "maps" (see an example below left)
in the FAA's original "baffle them with technical 
nonsense"
Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Or maybe it was the Democrats
winning back control over congress. Perhaps it was the the EPA, which has some
oversight on the process, actually doing their job. Whatever it was, I don't see
how the original plan, with all its obscure maps and purposely hidden
impacts, can still be allowed to be used. This fact, as well as the FAA's
concentrating , instead of fairly fanning out noise impacts on communities, seems to me to be an ideal basis for
lawsuits. Lawsuits are the one thing the FAA is afraid of
because it
exposes their unjust, racist and politicized routing process to outside review.
New
Impact Routing Maps Clearly Show FAA
Unjust, Politicized And Racist Aircraft Routes:
One thing I like about the update was how it now clearly shows how the FAA
criminally concentrates the planned increased noise impacts on 
humans,
especially if they are poor and Black and live in politically powerless areas.
Who has less political power than mostly poor and Black people in prison? So it
stands to reason that Riker's Island prison, near 
LaGuardia Airport (above
right) in New York City, would be a prime
overflight dumping area. As you can see on the
map above planes have to make a sharp right turn, avoiding open
water, to go over the prison!!! I wonder if the FAA somehow has figured a
way to eliminate the Riker's Island prison from their human impact analysis. The FAA concentrates routing impacts over their victims to show
that they are reducing the number of people impacted by aircraft noise.
Communities fight with each other so they won't be chosen by the FAA for the
concentrated impacts. This is how the FAA
plays one community and local politician off against each another.
JFK
Airport Impacts And Assessments Completely Left Out Of Update!!! Carefully
kept out 
of the "update" plan is any mention of what the plan is for
JFK Airport. Obviously the FAA is going to just going to send the projected increased
impacts over communities already heavily impacted and maintain the politically-protected communities quiet. In my opinion this is due to the influence of
Senator "Chuck" Schumer (above right) who I believe uses the FAA to
protect certain communities, like Lawrence, Long Island, from overflights. As a
congressman, Schumer was instrumental in the diverting JFK night flights away from Lawrence
and over nearby Rockaway, New York City.
Environmental Problems
Developing Even Before "Authority" Takes Over
New York's Stewart Airport Lease!!! The infamous Port Authority, which runs New York
City area airports, thought they were going to make a deal with a few local
slimeball politicians and secretly build a giant air cargo hub in upstate New
York without the
public doing a thing about it. That may have been a miscalculation. Already,
a local newspaper reports
that only
months before the projected takeover, they already have a controversy
brewing in the form of a small lake located near one of Stewart Airport's
runways.
FAA
Issues 60-Page Airspace Redesign "Update!!!" After five years and $50 million spent on reconfiguring flight paths in and
out of major Northeast airports, the Federal Aviation Administration released a
60-page study Friday afternoon on how it hopes to control noise under its new
plan. The highly technical noise mitigation report is available on the FAA Web
site: http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070407/NEWS01/704070362/1006
airspace_redesign where readers are encouraged to e-mail their remarks direct to
the FAA. FAA released the study Friday so interested parties could review it in
advance of upcoming meetings in the region on the redesign and its impact on
neighborhoods. The FAA has modified the headings of flights departing
Philadelphia International Airport over South Jersey based on objections from
residents and officials, said FAA spokesman Jim Peters. "We dropped one
heading that would have sent aircraft over Gloucester and Salem counties. Now,
the new track will shift over Camden County creating new impacts, but they are
slight to moderate. Based on our modeling, we see no significant noise
increase," said Peters. http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070407/NEWS01/704070362/1006
New
York: Stewart Airport Lake Controversy Disturbs Port Authority's Waters: Stewart
Airport — They saved the lake once before. Now, will the people who love to
swim in once-popular Crestview Lake have to ride to its rescue again? There will
be no swimming in Crestview this year; that much is certain. It's closed because
of construction of the Drury Lane interchange with Interstate 84 — in the
vicinity of the lake's entrance road. But what about 2008 and beyond? Diane
Newlander, a founder of New Windsor Concerned Citizens, raised the issue at last
week's Stewart Airport Commission meeting. By next year, the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey is expected to be the new leaseholder of the airport
property, and thus would have a say in who, if anybody, subleases the lake site.
But agency spokesman Marc La Vorgna said it's way too early to be asking such
questions. Right now, the Port Authority is focused solely on working out the
details of its own lease for the airport property, he said. Editor's Note:
Once this corrupt, weird "bi-state" agency gets control of Stewart
Airport locals can say goodby not only to their lake, but their quality of life.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070404/NEWS/704040336/-1/NEWS
The
European Commission will cap emissions from both domestic 
and international
airlines at 2004–2006 levels: As of 2012, all flights into and out of
the EU will be covered by the EU’s greenhouse
gas emissions trading system, under a proposal
laid out by the European Commission (EC) in late December. The system is the
centerpiece of EU efforts to meet emissions reduction targets agreed to under
the Kyoto
Protocol on climate change. Including aviation is necessary, EC officials
say, to account for the environmental costs of rapidly growing emissions from
this sector, which are threatening to wipe out gains made by other sectors. To
counter threats of legal action by the U.S., international carriers will be
given an extra year to comply. Air travel currently accounts for only about 3%
of total greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, but these are expected to more than
double by 2020 under a business-as-usual scenario. Since 1990, aviation
emissions have increased 87%. With this measure, EC officials estimate annual CO2
savings of 46% or 183 million tons by 2020. The EC will set pollution limits
based on average aviation emissions in 2004–2006, allocating credits to
specific airlines. Editor's Note: While Europe at least tries to
address the aviation pollution CO2 problem President Moronic
Polluter and the airlines think of ways of fighting it!!! http://www.welcomeurope.com/default.asp?id=1300&idnews=3789
Air Travel Is The "Dirtiest" Form
Of Transportation!!! These days, everyone seems to be flying everywhere - a
function of busier lives, better air connections and the proliferation of really
cheap tickets. In Europe, air passenger traffic has grown more than 5 percent a
year for the last two years, according to the Association of European Airlines.
In Asia, it is growing by over 7 percent a year, experts say, and the region is
projected to lead world air traffic by 2025, according to the Association of
Asia Pacific Airlines. The problem is that air travel is the "dirtiest
choice of transport" in terms of the emissions that cause global warming,
according to Peder Jensen, transportation expert at the European Environment
Agency in Copenhagen. Though exact estimates are complicated, it is four to five
times more polluting than a train for the distance traveled, and perhaps twice
as polluting as driving, according to Friends of the Earth. Many estimates are
higher: flying from London to Paris or Brussels produces 10 times more emissions
per passenger than taking the train, according to independent research
commissioned by Eurostar in 2006. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/28/business/greencol29.php
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Important Aviation News Stories This Week
Stewart Airport — They saved the lake once before.
Now, will the people who love to swim in once-popular Crestview Lake have to ride to its rescue again?
There will be no swimming in Crestview this year; that much is certain. It's closed because of construction of the Drury Lane interchange with Interstate 84 — in the vicinity of the lake's entrance road.
But what about 2008 and beyond?
Diane Newlander, a founder of New Windsor Concerned Citizens, raised the issue at last week's Stewart Airport Commission meeting.
By next year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is expected to be the new leaseholder of the airport property, and thus would have a say in who, if anybody, subleases the lake site.
But agency spokesman Marc La Vorgna said it's way too early to be asking such questions. Right now, the Port Authority is focused solely on working out the details of its own lease for the airport property, he said.
If Port Authority is amenable to someone running Crestview Lake, there then arises the question of who would run it.
The Town of New Windsor did that for more than 20 years under a lease with the state, until rising costs — combined with a growing percentage of users coming from outside the town — prompted it to drop out of the picture in 2002.
Orange County took over the site in 2003, to much fanfare. It gave the county a kind of recreational presence it hadn't previously had in its eastern reaches. County officials even talked of putting a golf course on adjacent lands.
But by the end of the 2005 season, the county was experiencing some stumbling blocks. Because it had only a short-term lease, it couldn't commit funds for needed improvements. The main building was in need of repair, and portable toilets were still being used.
Yesterday, county officials said they couldn't commit to running Crestview again.
"Down the road, we might take another look at it," said Rich Mayfield, County Executive Edward Diana's spokesman.
But he said that running the lake — even just day-to-day operation and maintenance — is very labor-intensive, and thus very costly.
"It's not just throwing the gates open and letting someone sit under an umbrella," Mayfield said.
And don't look to the town to get back in the business of running Crestview. Before a reporter could even complete the question, Supervisor George Green had his answer out: "No." He cited the same reason his predecessor, George Meyers, did for not renewing the lease on Crestview five years ago: too expensive.
"If the county wants to get back into it, God bless them," Green said.
Saturday, April 07, 2007 http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/local/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1175930704240330.xml&coll=8
A proposed noise mitigation plan will reroute new air traffic out of Philadelphia closer to the Delaware River in an effort to reduce the number of impacted residents, said Federal Aviation Administration officials on Friday.
For the past six years, the FAA has spent $50 million investigating proposals to address air traffic congestion in the Philadelphia and New York City metropolitan areas.
In order to cope with increased air traffic noise in communities under jet liner flight paths, the FAA released a noise mitigation report Friday detailing possible noise reduction remedies across the five-state area.
In earlier draft plans, "We reported that 341,000 people would experience some noise impacts," explained Steve Kelley, program manger for the airspace redesign project. "That number of 341,000 was reduced to 67,000. This is about an 87 percent reduction to the number of people who are exposed to noise levels."
The Gibbstown-section of Greenwich Township is in an area that might see an increase in air traffic under the FAA's favored integrated airspace alternative.
Under the alternative, Gibbstown residents would see additional traffic flying above their homes, resulting in a slight increase in aircraft noise.
"They [noise levels] are not significant, because they are in the 45 to 60 noise level," explained FAA spokesman Jim Peters. "The increase is light to moderate."
Although FAA reports indicate that Gibbstown would see an increase in air traffic under the proposed plan, noise mitigation strategies call for the flights to hug the Delaware River, reducing the number of impacted residents.
"The mitigated headings that we would use are closer to the river and have less impact than the original plans," Peters said. "We are going to keep them as close to the river as possible."