Landing Fee's

[Jerry_Atrick]

5 hours ago, Munger said:

$135 per night at lit apron.

This could be good value, if they allowed camping under the wing, decent dunny and shower block, and of course, on site BBQs - right next to the fuel bowsers/trucks/tanks...  🙂

 

Me, personally, after flying in the UK, would feel guilty only paying $6 full stop and $1.76 T&Gs.  A comparable airport over 'ere: https://flybrighton.com/landing-fees-and-charges/ and this used to be my home airport: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/593e87342e69cf4a3e148bb4/t/60fadce6c1ab01116964fd19/1627053286642/Airport+Price+List+v7b+(incl+VAT).pdf. At these rates, the annual landing card for Blackbushe for what was my a/c at c. 1450kg mtow would require 174 landings to break even. Smart flying schools pay private airstrips an annual fee to be able to use it for T&Gs rather than at their home airport.

 

Why table what is happening in the UK?  Because about 35 years ago (before I arrived here), they went from community assets to cost recovery.. I think most were council owned. Now a lot have been either sold off or long-leased to private companies with Armageddon clauses that if they can't make money out of it, they can convert them to housing estates.. Guess what has happened? Lots of airfields (some historically significant WWII airfields) have gone; the remaining have jacked up their prices..  And, nary a real (GA) flying club to be found; certainly not of the same calibre of those in Aus.

 

Permit flying is in better shape, but it hasn't made up for the decline in GA since I have been here ('96). So, take this as a warning, esp if you need more than 400m landing/take off distance.. It is a slippery slope.. Like @Munger, fight to keep it affordable... Airfields are a public asset; yes the pilots are few, but the benefits are many.

 

 

 

[Munger]

3 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

they went from community assets to cost recovery..

..we better delete this line! It will give the money vultures a new idea....

 

Thank you Jerry for sharing your experience. Skippiestan is (in my experience) 5 to 10 years behind the rest of the world in adopting bad ideas.

 

In regards to private airfields, that is already stitched up: In our area, only 2 movements per day are allowed without a DA, and you will never pass one of those within 10NM of an Airport.....

 

The camping idea is actually doable here in YLIS (physically): we now have public toilets and we do have some nice grass parking on the flood mount. Bet the fact that we have RPT, chain-mesh fence and ASIC requirement will kill that idea (even thought the commercial terminal is at the other end of the strip).

 

Keep the ideas coming!

[Keith Page]

15 hours ago, APenNameAndThatA said:

Does anyone know the cost to councils of maintaining an ALA, and how many movements they typically have a year? Knowing this would help with working out about costs. 

Air strips are a service to the region, hence the rates. A better question, how much revenue dose the strip bring to the district and emergency service like flying doctor and during floods and fire. 

[Flightrite]

User pays, when that phrase was invented aviators where f*cked! Airfields are a public asset, just part of infrastructure of any town, if you don't land there then tuff sh1t for the council, I don't use 90% of the facilities in a town if I drive thru but they are a community provided service/facility. I used to fly into two large regional dromes in Vic, sometimes buy fuel and spend plenty of dollars in the towns, not anymore since both the councils decided to rape the aviator!

[spacesailor]

Bruntingthorpe museum airfield,

I was shocked to find it became a ' parking lot ' ,

WHY close the only living aircraft museum !.

Thousands flocked there every open day,

AND THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH MONEY ?.

Shame on those ' get rich quick '  councilor s.

DAM THEIR HIDES.

spacesailor

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

10 hours ago, Munger said:

Bet the fact that we have RPT, chain-mesh fence and ASIC requirement

ASIO intelligence does suggest Lismore is high on the international terrorist agenda, you know.....

[spacesailor]

ASIO is busy watching those , terrorist , in Sydney. 

Lest they getaway  with another mass meeting, .

spacesailor

[Munger]

16 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

ASIO intelligence does suggest Lismore is high on the international terrorist agenda, you know.....

YEAH! I can tell you where it came from:

Years ago, when Ballina council did their brilliant marketing move and called themselves: "THE gateway to Byron Bay", the LCC tourist manager countered with an equally brilliant move: "Lismore, the gateway to Nimbin"...

 

...fast forward a decade: due to too much pink smoke in the area, 'tourist' became 'terrorist' 🤪

[Munger]

What about the idea of having a 'daily landing fee'? Anyone had any experience with that?

[skippydiesel]

On 30/07/2021 at 10:17 PM, Munger said:

..

 

So what is a reasonable amount to contribute without feeling that we have been raped? Me personally, I think $5 to $6 for a full stop in a UL is not too unreasonable and the $1.76 for a touch and go is a joke....

Ramp parking $50 per week at tie downs or $135 per night at lit apron......yeah, nah. (personal opinion). For that matter, should you be paying landing fees at your home port, when you are a rate payer there (that includes ppl paying for regular storage in a hangar)?

 

 

I guess its fair enough that we pay for what we use - but it could just be that we have already payed through our tax/rate dollars. Don't forget even if you are not a resident of the area served by the airfield, Councils get development grants from the State & Federal coffers - we all pay into this one way or another.

Lets not forget that most if not all airfields, associated with settlements/town/cities, were all once owned by us. We the people payed (or our parents/grandparents) for the land, the airfield development - all to serve the community- then sold of for a quick buck (go figure?)

The community is still being served by RPT, medivacs, urgency response, etc use of these airfields, that result in fare more wear/tare than our little flying machines could deliver in a 100 years of landings.

The little RAA and baby GA's (under 1000kg) have almost nil impact on the wear/tear of the strip/taxiways (bit like bicycles on the public road) and if we land/stop/park we might just be spending a few dollars in the community, for a feed/bed,  so whatever we are charged would need to be pretty nominal if we are getting " a fair go"

 

 

If your wheels dont actually touch the ground - no pay. Anyhow a T&G payment is a silly idea that will cost much more to collect than they will earn.

[Munger]

51 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

almost nil impact on the wear/tear of the strip/taxiways (bit like bicycles on the public road)

Wear and tear on roads: one of my favorite soap boxes! 😀

 

During my civil engineering studies, we had to design a road pavement...my favorite part: Design is based on number of expected average truck axles going over it (very simplified), not car movements. We were told that a B-double does 40k times more damage to road when compared to a pax vehicle. Another thing they told us was  that if you don't use a road, it degrades quicker than if you use it as intended. The movement of traffic 'massages' the pavement and helps prevent deterioration...so we could argue that light traffic of little bug smashers will save the airport owner money and they should pay us for using the runway! 😀

 

Very good points, thank you for sharing your ideas. I do think that we have just had this 'user pays' mentality drilled into us from every angle to the point that we don't question that mantra anymore....

[Bruce Tuncks]

Skippy said it correctly. One thing I remember from my previous life was that heavy trucks are roughly equivalent to 1000 cars with respect to road wear and tear. AND things are worse when you consider that the road is much more expensive to begin with because of truck loads. You may see this easier by thinking of bridge work.

Well we all benefit from the loads trucks carry, and we would have to pay somehow or other. But when it comes to us small planes and airfields, I reckon we are being ripped off but how can we fight back when we don't have the numbers to influence elections?

[Bruce Tuncks]

I just re-read Munger's post and it appears that the figure is more refined since my time...  gosh, 40,000 times the damage... I have seen a big transport truck tearing up a country road near Narromine. It was just after a heavy thunderstorm and the edges of the road were soft and the big tyres were punching through.

[spacesailor]

I once said ( in the UK  ), that if all car owner,s put those cars on block for, twelve months.

All the rip off fees would have to go , no if or buts, the gonernment the, fuel companies & even the local council, would notice a big drop in profits. 

spacesailor

[turboplanner]

2 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

I just re-read Munger's post and it appears that the figure is more refined since my time...  gosh, 40,000 times the damage... I have seen a big transport truck tearing up a country road near Narromine. It was just after a heavy thunderstorm and the edges of the road were soft and the big tyres were punching through.

or another one. "One Semi trailer pass is equivalent to 10,000 car passes.

Australia doesn't have the short travel distances of Europe or the eastern USA, so for all but a few roads we can't afford a concrete road.

Our engineers cleverly designed roads with flexible pavement, so while there may be some very heavy point loads, they are moving at cruise speed, and the pavement flexes down to take the load  and comes back up again. This same principle was used in WW2 in north Africa with some pavement-over-sand roads requiring the Army trucks to keep going at a minimum 40 mph to avoid wrecking the road.

These rules of thumb don't mean much, because there are many other ways a flexible pavement can deteriorate, the biggest one being the road base becoming waterlogged through cracks or potholes at the side. What we do have in Australis is a very complex "Bridge Formula" where trucks must be built so only one axle group (single, tandem tri etc) can be on one bridge span at a time, and that creates some of the odd appearances of bigger semi trailers.)

 

However, none of that is really applicable to RA or GA aircraft because in some cases we have concrete runways, and on others, most aircraft would be under the 4.5 tonnes Gross Mass which triggers the need for a truck licence, so minimal damage to a flexible pavement, and not much damage even on a grass strip.

 

I'm more inclined to think the Landing Fees are to cover rates, power, lights, security, mowing, cleaning etc.

 

The current method of applying the fees by radio transmissions, CCTV etc seems to work, so I don't see a problem when you are visiting another field that a fee is triggered for that landing and takeoff.

 

Where it starts to become unfair if for training, where a student might be asked to pay ten fees for touch and go circuits.

Training is the boilerhouse of the airfield;it usually produces the activity which attracts new entrants off the road, and it usually compound the number of students supporting the Flying School because they go out and promote it, talk their friends into flying etc.

The model I would use for circuit training is no fee, to encourage the airfield to grow. It would be interesting for flying schools who have detailed known cost centres to crunch the numbers and see what affect this would have on the Council income, and at the same time look at policy changes which would make the Flyinf School more viable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flightrite]

Avdata, now there's a joke in it's own right! They send me invoices for fees/services that I never used all the time!

A guy I know who spent 2 years rebuilding his plane had numerous invoices sent to him!

I'll go out of my way if I can to avoid Ldg fees, sometimes a principle costs!

[Munger]

Does anyone have any figures of what it costs a council to introduce a camera landing fee system and running costs?