From: mazorj@verizon.net   
      
   "NoneYa"  wrote in message   
   news:qPACi.18$PG7.10@newsfe05.lga...   
   >   
   >   You are.  No one else is, because it's not a   
   > significant   
   >  problem, especially when compared to the real problems   
   > facing FAA.   
   >   
   > OK, since in your words NONE of my comments about   
   > unqualified blacks or women in the FAA or African ATC are   
   > valid or allowed in your pea brain I will play along and   
   > totally ignore race and sex bias problems and PC hiring   
   > practices in the FAA.   
   >   
   > Since you know so much about ATC Mr. Wizard IN YOUR OWN   
   > WORDS.............   
   >   
   > What are the REAL problems in the FAA AND in Africa with   
   > ATC? You are King for a day. WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO FIX   
   > IT????   
      
   FAA is hardly unique among agencies - many others have the   
   same or similar problems - but, in no particular order:   
      
   Fund FAA as a government regulatory agency should be   
   funded - adequate $ on longer, predictable timelines, to   
   provide all the services that the public expects and   
   deserves.  In the nearly 30 years that I've been watching,   
   politicians have made FAA increasingly reliant for capital   
   and operating expenses on funds that it extracts from users.   
   The trust fund was supposed to pay for capital improvements   
   and new technology, but over the years FAA had to tap it   
   more and more to fund payrolls and pencils.  This eventually   
   became the norm, to the point where we now have the sorry   
   spectacle where segments of the aviation community have been   
   maneuvered into fighting each other over table scraps and   
   who should pay what for air traffic services.   
      
   Part of this is attributable to the usual political   
   process - most pols' horizons don't extend past their next   
   election cycle and their own voters' demands.  Part of it   
   came from the phony conservative war against "irresponsible   
   tax and spend liberals" starting with Reagan, which created   
   an atmosphere that couldn't/wouldn't distinguish between   
   genuine waste and genuine, necessary government functions.   
   (I say "phony" because the national debt has more than   
   doubled under Bush, and 70% of that debt came under just   
   three Republican presidents.  Fiscal responsibility?  Yeah,   
   right.)  The FAA is not totally blameless for this - see   
   below - but the bottom line is that there's no such thing as   
   a free lunch or free regulatory services.  You say we need   
   more air traffic controllers?  (We do.)  Then give FAA the   
   funding it needs to hire them and stop expecting it to be a   
   "team player" in the campaigns to starve government to the   
   bone and bash organized labor.   
      
   Some of the other problems are even less tractable because   
   they are inherent in, and endemic to the   
   political/bureaucratic process, but here are some   
   highlights:   
      
   FAA has frequently mismanaged itself and its programs.   
   Unfortunately for you, this well pre-dates the arrival of   
   blacks, women, and "sand niggers" (Muslims) that you rant   
   about here and in other groups.  Let's take collision   
   avoidance as an example.  Going back to the 1960s after the   
   post-Grand Canyon reforms were in place, FAA wasted 20 years   
   on various ground-based schemes before it admitted that the   
   best, most effective and cost-efficient approach was not on   
   the ground but in the air.  (This was the result of a   
   philosophical tug-of-war betwen FAA, which wanted to keep it   
   all under their control on the ground, and pilots, who   
   wanted a system that put the information and decision-making   
   in the cockpit.)  Since the mandate for TCAS in the early   
   1990s, there have been no (zero, nada) midair collisions in   
   the U.S. between TCAS airliners or even between airliners   
   and GA equipped with Mode-S transponders.  The Not Invented   
   Here syndrome will continue both on Independence Avenue and   
   in the field for as long as there is an FAA.   
      
   Or take modernization of the national airspace system.  When   
   it finally got moving on this in the 1980s, FAA tried the   
   easy way out - contract the whole thing to one company to do   
   part of it and manage the rest.  (I suspect, but cannot   
   prove, that it took this approach in response to the Reagan   
   diktat to let private industry do things that should have   
   remained under the responsibility of government.  Farming it   
   all out to private industry, and promising that it would   
   allow FAA to reduce the number of controllers, may have been   
   the only way to sell it to the Contract on America crowd   
   that was then controlling the purse strings.)  A billion   
   dollars or so later, it admitted that their approach had   
   failed and the task had to be broken down into smaller,   
   manageable projects under its coordination and direct   
   management.  FAA hasn't exactly been stellar in that area,   
   either, with constant overruns and missed deadlines, but at   
   least it's moving/lurching forward.   
      
   Now lets pull back for a wide-angle view of how FAA   
   regulates safety.  Most of it consists of auditing   
   paperwork, supplemented by on-site visits and inspections.   
   Okay, you can't have an FAA agent standing over every   
   wrench-turner and pilot's shoulder; but given the budgetary   
   crunches described above, FAA has too willingly "gone with   
   the program" by meekly buying more and more into the   
   hands-off approach to regulating, just as it has willingly   
   submitted to cuts in ATS.  To the extent that there's a   
   problem with the current Administrator, it isn't that she's   
   a woman, it's that she's a team-playing Republican   
   appointee.  Her male predecessor counterparts were hardly   
   any better.   
      
   Meanwhile, FAA resources that should have been available for   
   its real job were being diverted by political meddling.   
   Reagan's Secretary of Transportation and FAA Administrator   
   decided that the airlines, and particularly the cockpits,   
   were filled with druggies.  (Hey, they're represented by   
   unions, so they must be liberals, so they must be godless,   
   gutless, America-hating, drug-addicted degenerates, right?)   
   So they mandated random drug testing (an odd position for   
   "conservatives" to take, but no matter) and what did they   
   find?  About one-half percent of airline empoyees tested   
   positive at a time when the average workplace had hit rates   
   in the 8%-10% range.  Never mind that there was no evidence   
   of significant drug abuse at airlines, or that there had   
   never been (and still hasn't been) an accident on a   
   scheduled U.S. airline where drug or alcohol abuse by the   
   crew was found to be the probable cause.  Once again,   
   political ideology and priorities triumphed over reason, and   
   enforcement resources (see previous paragraph)were diverted   
   to useless activities.   
      
   This was hardly the first or only first phantom menace that   
   FAA has had to chase.  Want to know why pilots and FAs have   
   to go through the same security as passengers?  It has   
   nothing to do with 9/11.  In 1987 (the Reagan era, in case   
   you forgot) a recently fired PSA ground employee smuggled a   
   gun onto one of their flights, shot the crew and crashed the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)