Aviation Conspiracy: An Obscene Response To The Airspace Redesign!!!

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

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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

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An Obscene Response To The Airspace Redesign!!!

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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.

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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."

date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:12:28 -0500 author: Bill Mulcahy