Aviation Conspiracy Newsletter #465........................................................................January 27, 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
Quote of the Week: "I have to sleep with earplugs at night in my own house" comment from Michael Hall in a news story this week. Mr. Hall is fed up with the FAA disturbing his sleep with the recently activated Airspace Redesign Plan
An Obscene Response To The Airspace Redesign!!!
As
Bill Sees It (Editorial): An
Obscene Response To A Corrupt, Obscene Agency!!! Sometimes you have to
fight obscenity with obscenity. That apparently is the feeling of a couple in
Pennsylvania fighting against the FAA's destruction of their health and quality
of life. While I don't like the use of bad language anymore (I could curse with
the best of them when I was a N.Y. City firefighter), I support this means of
bringing attention to their plight. It certainly did. I saw this picture not
only on the Internet but on national television. Of course the networks and the
news media sanitized the picture by blacking out the actual words and just
leaving "FU." That's OK, because the objective of getting
publicity for the cause 
had
been achieved. More Creative Protests
Needed!!! This action reminds me of the recent incident in Indonesia
where a community threatened to bring down noisy planes by launching balloons.
They must have been successful and made some type of agreement with the
government because I haven't heard anything about them this year. My own idea
for a creative airport expansion protest is for a community to fly barrage
balloons, at the legal height allowed. They wouldn't endanger planes but would
be a constant, visible reminder that a community objects to the presence of
plane noise. They could even include messages to the FAA. I would hope they
wouldn't be obscene as the could be seen by community people as well as the FAA
rats. New York: Phony Citizen's Advisory
Committee For Stewart Airport Has First Meeting!!! As I predicted the
"citizen's" advisory committee for upstate New York's Stewart Airport,
which was recently taken over by the "bi-state agency," the Port
Authority
of New York and New Jersey, seems to filled with political hacks. Even some of
the "environmentalists" represented groups that, more closely tied to
political handouts (grants) than to the saving the environment. The head of
the Port Authority, Anthony Shorris, is continuing to say that Stewart Airport
will be the "first carbon negative" airport. However,
Shorris let slip the REAL plan which the Port Authority has kept secret from its
victims...its conversion into a giant, heavily night operating air cargo
hub!!!! He
said Stewart is planned to be a: "major reliever of the other airports, a
cargo and job-generating facility (codeword for
"hub") for a new economic growth pattern and a demonstration of the
potential for sustainable development in aviation." I believe the real
plan is to move N.Y. City's metropolitan airport's air cargo traffic (which
operates in the late night, early morning hours) to Stewart Airport while
moving JFK and Newark Airport passenger traffic into the late-night slots
vacated by air cargo planes. FAA Pollluters To
Study Aviation Effect On Climate Change: Talk about letting the fox into
the henhouse!!! I can imagine the report that the FAA will devise. They will
probably show that aviation has NO effect on the climate and global warming.
Couple
Protests Jet Noise With Obscene Rooftop Sign: FOLSOM,
Pa. — A couple fed up with the noise from jets flying over their
house expressed their anger at federal aviation officials by painting an obscene
message atop their home. The 7-foot tall expletive -- with one of its
four letters replaced by an underscore -- is directed at the Federal Aviation
Administration, which recently altered the plane routes around Philadelphia
International Airport. "Just
doing it made me feel better, but I'd still like to say what I wrote directly to
the idiot head of the FAA," homeowner Michael Hall told the Philadelphia
Daily News for Thursday's editions. FAA
spokesman Jim Peters had no comment. The FAA's new departure headings out of
Philadelphia went into effect last month as part of a massive restructuring of
the airspace over the congested corridor between New York and Philadelphia.
The plan has triggered a lawsuit from
Delaware County, which argues that the FAA's environmental-impact study violated
federal regulations and that the new flight paths will only marginally reduce
airport delays. Hall said he has
called the FAA's noise-complaint hot line about 20 times but could never leave a
message because the voice mailbox was always full. "I
have to sleep with earplugs at night in my own house," said Hall. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325428,00.html
FAA's
Plan To "Understand" Aviation Contribution To Climate Change!!!
FAA has a five-pronged plan to understand and combat aviation's contribution to
climate change, a senior agency official said last week in Washington. FAA is
crafting a "careful plan" to study the issue and to move toward a
"carbon neutral future," said Daniel Elwell, FAA assistant
administrator for aviation policy, planning and environment. The plan is in
contrast to the "internationally unpopular path" the European Union is
going down with its proposal to include aviation in its emissions trading
scheme, he said. The first prong of FAA's plan is to improve the scientific
understanding of the effect aviation has on climate change, Elwell said. Beyond
carbon dioxide, the science is unclear on the effect altitude and other gases
and emissions may have on climate change, he said. FAA must accelerate air
traffic management reform and step up the system's efficiency to reduce fuel
burn, Elwell said. NextGen is critical to the FAA's plan, although such measures
as reduced vertical separation and East Coast airspace reform are steps in the
right direction, he said. Third, FAA must work with scientists and aircraft
manufacturers to "hasten the improvement" and development of
environmentally friendly aircraft, Elwell said. The fourth measure is to step up
research on alternative fuels. Elwell noted that FAA's research into
coal-to-liquid technology is yielding results. Fifth, Elwell said FAA is
considering market-based measures, such as emissions trading, tax incentives and
carbon offsets. The U.S. has never been opposed to emissions trading, Elwell
said, but it is opposed to a unilateral decision, such as the EU's. Instead, the
FAA and the U.S. believe ICAO should mediate and administer any future emissions
trading system, he added. Yet, noting the remarkable gains in fuel efficiency
the industry has made since 2000, Elwell said that the price of fuel is better
at motivating airlines to become more efficient than any government policy. http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=busav&id=news/CARB01238.xml&headline=FAA%20Official%20Outlines%20Plan%20To%20Study%20Climate%20Change
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Important Aviation News Stories This Week
Stewart (Airport) advisory group seeks role
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080124/BIZ/801240313/-1/NEWS
NEW WINDSOR, N.Y. - The passenger terminal at Stewart
International Airport used to be a parachute packing plant. One of the entry
roads is lined with abandoned, boarded-up military barracks. New York City is
more than 60 miles away.
But the former Air Force base has a runway long enough to land a space shuttle,
four times as much land as LaGuardia, half a billion dollars to work with and an
onrushing future as an important regional airport.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is converting the airport into
what it hopes will be a state-of-the-art facility that attracts millions of
travelers a year while serving as a relief valve for increasing congestion at
Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport and
LaGuardia Airport. Officials also hope it can be an economic engine for New
York.
"We have a belief that Stewart can be kind of a beacon
for a lot of things," said Anthony Shorris, executive director of the Port
Authority, which has a 93-year lease on Stewart and runs the other three
airports. "An anchor for growth in the Hudson Valley, a major reliever of
the other airports, a cargo and job-generating facility for a new economic
growth pattern and a demonstration of the potential for sustainable development
in aviation."
Change is already unmistakable: A new exit off Interstate 84 and wide new access
roads now lead to the airport. A 350-space parking lot went up in three weeks.
New chairs abound in the baggage claim area. The Port Authority took the airport
over in November and said it would spend $500 million there over the next 10
years.
Diannae Ehler, the airport's general manager, said that with the arrival of
several new airlines, Stewart will serve about 900,000 passengers this year,
triple its 2006 volume. It could handle as many as 1.5 million, she said, and
she is busily recruiting more carriers, passenger and cargo. Currently, the only
international flights coming into Stewart are charters, but Ehler said she will
be talking to overseas airlines during a trip to Europe next month.
Ehler's office is in a converted Air Force building, in view of several giant
C5-A military transport planes that are part of the New York Air National Guard,
also based at Stewart.
Shorris foresees 3 million passengers using Stewart annually within a few years.
He said 11 million people who now use the three major airports live in Stewart's
"catchment area" _ Westchester County and points north in New York,
northern New Jersey and even part of Pennsylvania.
"Obviously not all of them will end up at Stewart," Shorris said.
"Some of them are taking a flight to Budapest or whatever and that's not
going to come out of Stewart. But many of those people would be attracted, we
believe, to high-quality service at a high-quality airport that's in a different
airspace from the rest of the New York airports."
The attractions, he said, will include an easy trip to the airport, plenty of
close-in parking, comfortable terminals and flights taking off on schedule.
Those factors were all coming together nicely this month for Dan Hurwitz, a
60-year-old math teacher at Skidmore College, who drove 100 miles to Stewart
from his home in Saratoga Springs because a flight to Sarasota, Fla., was
cheaper there than from the Albany airport that is closest to his home.
"I've wanted to try this airport," he said, killing time over a cup of
coffee. "Parking was really easy in the credit-card lot. They told me to be
here two hours early but everything's fast. I could have come an hour later.
"My wife and I fly to Germany a lot and we're very familiar with the New
York airports," he said. "I can get here in half the time."
The airlines, too, say they appreciate the differences between Stewart and the
big airports. Skybus, which began flying out of Stewart to Columbus, Ohio, this
month, finds the airport "a perfect fit," said spokesman Bob Tenenbaum.
"Skybus turns its flights around in 25 minutes," he said. "At
Kennedy or Newark or LaGuardia, you can easily wait 25 minutes just to land.
Stewart is the kind of airport that lets an airline like Skybus serve a major
market without using the major airports."
Skybus is adding flights to Greensboro, N.C., next month and expects to expand
further at Stewart, Tenenbaum said.
Rapid expansion might cause concern among environmentalists, but Shorris has
pledged to develop "the world's first carbon-negative airport," in
which terminals, baggage equipment, offices, stores and restaurants "not
only do not produce greenhouse gas emissions but actually produce or support
enough green energy to begin to offset the emissions generated by the
planes."
Steve Rosenberg, a senior vice president at the environmental group Scenic
Hudson, said his group wants to "make sure that in fact what the goal is
not merely a catch phrase to capture attention and imagination but will result
in a real difference." Rosenberg sits on a citizens advisory panel on
Stewart set up by the Port Authority.
The theme of a blank canvas was evident later as Ehler looked out across the
tarmac at a shrubby rise that blocked the view of the end of the runway.
"I could use that space for airplane parking," she said. "I think
I'm going to want to take down that hill."