I learned to fly out of the Lawrence Airport in MA and part of the training was to fly in and out of smaller airports. I learned the radio frequencies to use to announce my entry into the landing / takeoff patter and to toggle the runway lights. Standard fare as most of the airports in the US are considered “general aviation” fields – small biz jets and prop planes – not having a Tower talk you in was no big deal. So upon hearing that the FAA was going to close some of these towers of the mid size fields was not a big deal – pilots are trained to deal with this. But like much of Obama’s response to his own sequester plan (for it was the White House that came up with it), instead of a corporate handling of a 2.4% lowered budget (where true non-essentials are cut out), his Administration has been intent on causing the taxpayers and citizens as much grief as possible (even as his Administration just caused all of us to live 2.4% less due to raising out taxes). So closing FAA towers is part of that – but WHY these particular 149 Towers? From Hot Air:
The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday told 149 regional airports across the country it would begin closing their air traffic control towers in April, but said it would spare another 40 towers that had been on the chopping block.
As the post says, this is all about less than 2/3ds of a $Billion out of budget of $58 Billion – small change at the 50,000 foot level. But take out paper pushers first? But what is so special about those 40? Oh, sure:
