Anbody going to that FAA Online chart meeting tomorrow?

[poadeleted21]

Wasn't someone from here going? Still in the plan book? I'd be grateful to get a PIREP.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Here is the relevant U.S. Code that allows the FAA to charge for charts; note that it specifies a maximum amount - but no minimum:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/usc_sec_49_00044721----000-.html

Note that it even provides that "A fee may be reduced or waived for research organizations, educational organizations, or non-profit organizations, when the Administrator determines that reduction or waiver of the fee is in the best interest of the Government by furthering public safety."

(I could find nothing in that statute that could be read as requiring the FAA to set a non-zero price or fee.)

 

[Jim Logajan]

OK - go tell your congressman. This will require legislation since AeroNav chart sales are currently REQUIRED to be self-supporting.

Ahem - I've posted a link to what I believe is the relevant U.S. Code and I saw nothing in it that REQUIRES chart sales to be self-supporting. I read the code as ALLOWING chart sales to self-supporting - nothing more.

There is even a clause that states "The Administrator shall adjust the price of an aeronautical product and service sold to the public as necessary to avoid any adverse impact on aviation safety attributable to the price specified under this paragraph."

 

[Jim Logajan]

OK, again, go tell Congress you don't want AeroNav to be self-supporting. Right now they apparently feel they must be.

Congress already weighed in on this years ago when it wrote the statute, and I don't believe it says what you or the FAA think it says. Please read the statute already in place and tell me where or how it requires AeroNav to be self-supporting (technically the Aeronav entity isn't even mentioned - just the FAA.) Here is how I see it works in reality:

1. The FAA may NOT exceed some of the costs involved. (Per the section on Maximum Price.) After this I think everyone else stops reading and thinking.
2. There is no way to set prices such that the price can precisely match the costs, so some loss is expected and allowed by the wording of the statute. That loss is covered by the FAA general fund.
3. The "Maximum Price" paragraph is subject to the "Adjustment of price" paragraph, which specifically allows for selling at a loss by saying the FAA "shall adjust the price of an aeronautical product and service sold to the public as necessary to avoid any adverse impact on aviation safety attributable to the price specified under this paragraph."
4. Ergo, they could set the price at zero or close to it if the FAA judges (or can be convinced) that is needed for reasons of safety.

Just about every web site seems to be repeating the meme that Aeronav is somehow required to recover its costs and some strange thing prevents the FAA from simply burying the cost into their general funding. :mad2:

 

[Jim Logajan]

Read the budget, and show me where Congress is funding AeroNav to NOT be self-supporting.

Basic principle- if you're ALLOWED to charge a fee to the public, you WILL charge a fee to the public, unless Congress specifically funds you so you don't have to.

Why on earth would you NOT get revenue from the public and give the agency overall more money to play with?

Are you arguing from a point of view as some in the FAA might see things, or as you see things?

All I can say is that Congress legislated an "out" that allows the FAA to fund the costs in making charts from other revenue sources, such as taxes on things unrelated to charts, if need be. As an example of your argument, I would guess there is no statute that disallows the FAA from charging a fee to navigate their web site, so yes, based on that line of logic that kind of revenue source is also plausible.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Here's skyvector's report. Cute way to get around the fact that aeronav can't copyright its stuff - force the distributors to affix their own copyright.

Bottom line is that vendors can't copyright the material from Aeronav - the law is pretty settled on that. Doesn't matter what Aeronav demands of them.

Edit additional on the law:

"3.2.1 May another publisher or individual republish a U.S. Government work and assert copyright? A publisher or individual can republish a U.S. Government work, but the publisher or individual cannot legally assert copyright unless the publisher or individual has added original, copyright protected material. In such a case, copyright protection extends only to the original material that has been added by the publisher or individual. (See 17 USC § 40372 regarding copyright notice requirements for works incorporating U.S. Government works.)"
From: http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#321

More specifically, per the referenced copyright notice requirements of 17 USC 403 - the vendors will need to make clear which portions of their product are copyrighted works of theirs and which are those of the government. If they do not do this, they can actually lose the copyright protection of their own work.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Numbers like that are what makes me shake my head and think this is more of a "land grab" at an opportune time "the Government is broke! Broke, I tell you!" (remember, they print the money... and the money's not backed by jack...) than a real need.

Here is the 870 page budget estimate for the FAA for FY 2012:

http://www.dot.gov/budget/2012/budgetestimates/faa.pdf

Budget growth (FY 2012 is requested):
FY 2010: $15.6B
FY 2011: $16.2B
FY 2012: $18.7B

Personnel growth, full-time equivalents (FY 2012 is requested):
FY 2010: 47,973
FY 2011: 48,256
FY 2012: 48,539

Sorry I rounded only to the nearest $100,000,000 on the budgets (their numbers are rounded to the nearest $1,000,000.)

I feel bad that they've become so impoverished over the years. Shed a tear, folks, shed a tear. Their budget needs to grow faster than your investments in the stock market because - well - just because.

 

[Jim Logajan]

> all fixable with $0.03/gal on fuel.*

0.03 CENTS/gallon is what Hilton wrote.

He may have written that, but $5M/186Mg is $0.0269/g, so closer to $0.03/g than to $0.0003/g.
($5M/year is what Aeronav is saying needs to be made up, and Wikipedia says avgas usage is about 186M gallons/year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas )

Classic case of an error due to switching units somewhere during the computation. His example of a 100 gallon fill up actually costs you $3.00 more, not $0.03 more (e.g. you might see a bill of, say, $553 instead of $550.)