You guys are gonna love this.....
 

I'm amazed at how ignorant and naive the general public and congress are to this issue. People have no idea how dependent our economy is on General aviation - its impact is HUGE! That package that was overnighted from the small cargo operation or the lifeflight taking a sick passenger to better care etc. etc. User fees will drastically affect our economy and negatively affect safety for the MAJORITY of aviation as a whole. If you are unsettled by 300 hour pilots getting hired now it will only get worse because who will be able to afford training, or let alone live on a CFI's salary with user fees? I'm generally for less government and fewer taxes - however the issues of privitization and user fees is a dark path we DON"T want to go down. Its destroyed GA in other countries. Why do you think we train so many foreign pilots? Our ATC system is a PUBLIC service AND necessity! Which I firmly belive for this reason should be funded and controlled by the government! Anyone tried to call FSS lately? Privatization has worked wonders there.... I don't even bother anymore because of the excessive hold times. I think we need to pump more resources into our ATC system with upgraded equipment and decent salaries but privatization and / or user fees is NOT the answer! Resist the temptation to look down from your heavy metal 121 gig and not care for your GA brothers because we all need to stand together on this and its whats best for our country and economy. It seems only natural that upper management would want to pass all the costs they can on everyone else after gutting salaries anyway. Also face the facts in Washington, it doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you are on there are far too many politicians that would love to cut the FAA's budget and pass that cost onto someone else other than the taxpayer, either to tout their great tax cuts or divert the funds to their own special government programs.

You got that right bub...the last 2 or 3 times I filed IFR and got ready to depart the tower told me they had no flight plan on me. Talk about a pain in the A$$. It's not even worth the trouble. And they want us to pay user fees for this crap?

No doubt. I'm getting a lot more adept at using DUATS to file my IFR flight plans!

Even better is when you try to call FSS to cancel a flight plan. Flew into an uncontrolled field the other day and couldn't cancel with ATC due to WX. Landed and couldn't get them on RCO. Called FSS and couldn't get through.

We were trying to find the number for the controlling facility when ATC called the airport to see if we had crashed. Found out later that some other poor bastard was circling to get in. Arrrgh.

Ain't just you my friend. I've sat in the cockpit of a 145 cancelling clearance inbound and trying to get one outbound on my cell phone. Henceforth - I avoid charter flying.

Here is a great site to check out fully from the other side of the issue:

http://www.gaservingamerica.org/index.htm

Josh, are you a member of AOPA? If you are, you should report your experience to them. AOPA is compiling a list of issues pilots are having with the new flight service stations. The FAA and Lockheed said they are reviewing each complaint individually.

I read an article today that said Lockheed's FSS contract promised anwering of all phone calls within 20 seconds and answering of all radio calls within 5 seconds. Obviously this has not been happening recently. I have no problem with Lockheed taking over FSS. I have no problem with them consolidating from 60 to 20 stations. I am glad to see that the FAA is saving money. But this problem with hold times is getting rediculous. How hard can it be to fix? I recommend reporting serious problems to FAA (like Josh's story about some poor guy circling for 30 minutes because they couldn't get through to cancel their flight plan).

it seems like everytime i look at the tv's in the airports, this commercial is on.

I had the same situation. Filed and tower told no flight plan. Called FSS on frequency and refiled still nothing. Did it 4 times and it never went through. Had to get a freakin local IFR to go all the way to Detroit Metro IFR. At least tower helped me out.