by
Darryl Phillips
It's the end of the year, time to go back through the mailbag. This column generates a variety of mail. Most of it is warm, some is downright hot!
Got a nice note recently from a retired Colonel in New Mexico. He included a "temple rubbing" for my wall, which reads:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things, the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
I agree. At least I mostly agree. I do have some problem with the link between moral and patriotic. Moral is a matter of right and wrong, while patriotic is a matter of country. If one assumes that whatever is patriotic is therefore moral, he has given up the right to make his own determination of what is just. And THAT is immoral.
I certainly agree that there are things worth fighting for, the pure pleasure and freedom of flight is one of them. Our government continues to choke the life from personal aviation, and I keep searching for pilots who would practice what they preach.
There have been several letters suggesting that my non-conservative views have no place in an aviation publication. Or in aviation, period. I read and consider each viewpoint, everyone has an equal right to their opinion. But I get amused sometimes, trying to figure out what liberal and conservative really are.
For example, consider the current brouhaha over privatizing Air Traffic Control. It seems that many of the people who holler the loudest against socialism are the strongest supporters of socialized Air Traffic Control.
If we really believe in free enterprise, why can't we practice it? We've seen what UPS and FedEx have done to straighten out the Post Office. And we've all enjoyed the increased services and lower costs since the breakup of the telephone monopoly. If an airline is technically capable to maintain avionics in a plane, why couldn't they do the same with an ILS or a tower? Could they possibly do a worse job than the feds?
AOPA is currently spending a lot of lobbying time and money supporting socialized ATC. Do you see why I get amused trying to figure out who is politically to the left of whom?
However, there is a clear distinction between facility and services. I believe the runways and taxiways are just like interstate highways and access roads. Or any other street, for that matter. They belong to all of us collectively, and should remain so. It makes no more sense to turn a runway over to a private operator than it would to give the highway system to the trucking companies.
But all over the country, state and local governments are learning it's cheaper and more efficient to let private companies drive the ambulance or haul the trash or provide other services. Aviation should welcome anything that promises to increase efficiency and to make the user responsible for the costs.
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There have been a number of letters on the subject of GPS and GLONASS. The gist comes down to these four questions:
Question one...Should the government be involved in providing precise navigation and guidance information (ILS, VOR, LORAN, GPS)?
Most people agree these services are worthwhile.
Question two...Should those signals be provided even if military enemies could use this data?
If that answer is no, then we need to shut down anything that could benefit the enemy. Yet we see the U. S. Coast Guard going full speed in the other direction, installing expensive DGPS all around the nation, covering over half our citizenry and much of our infrastructure with very precise navigation signals which could be used by an enemy. And that's because the benefits of accurate position data outweigh any help those signals might give to an adversary.
Question three...If the government is going to provide precise navigation signals, should it do so at minimum cost?
If that answer is no, then a whole discussion is opened as to the advantages of wasting more tax money than necessary. The ramifications could go on for many pages. But if the answer is yes, and we should use the tax money wisely, then the remaining question is obvious:
Question four...Why don't we simply declassify the GPS P-code, and instantly give everyone centimeter accuracy? It could be done this very day, and would not cost the government a penny! Technology has advanced to the point that high precision receivers won't cost us much more than the present inaccurate GPS.
If the P-code were declassified, full precision would be available NOW, not years or decades in the future. It would be available at all airports, public and private. Super-precision approaches to both ends of every runway would be a piece of cake. But our government prefers to deny us the capability we've already bought and paid for, and then spends thousands of millions of dollars to slowly restore the precision, one major airport at a time. So far, the number of equipped airports is zero, and the air carriers continue to mill around in a system that dates back to the Ford Trimotor. The airlines have lost more money in the last five years than they made since the invention of the airplane. It's not just our little planes that are being hurt by absurd government policies, it's everyone who flies as a passenger, or sends freight, or mail, or whatever. It's all of us.
And, that same precision would be available to every boat and every automobile at the same time. No extra government cost. Police and fire departments would benefit. Doesn't that sound better than the present government policy of producing a precise signal, not letting us use it, and then spending untold sums to provide the equivalent precision to a few users, in a few locations, in the future?
If someone wants to use satellite navigation for guidance of incoming missiles, they can already use the very precise GLONASS. They don't need GPS. So we aren't hurting the enemy, we're only hurting ourselves.
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The mailbag shows that this column is accomplishing the objective, it's making the pilot community sit up and think about what is happening to aviation, why it's happening, and what to do about it. I want to personally thank everyone who wrote or called during the past year. Is there a particular topic you would like to see in the months ahead? This is your column, most of the ideas come from your letters, so keep them coming. May you have blue skies and tailwinds during 1994. Happy New Year.