173 Air Traffic Control Towers Closing

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nanZor

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Would the closed tower frequencies just resort to CTAF usage, or be silent and pilots just use other unicom and multicom frequencies instead?

On a side note, there are some badly-maintained radios out there which I'm sometimes amazed that even the tower can understand. But now, air-air comms are going to obviously be paramount perhaps especially for those who only communicated with the tower previously.

What I'm wondering is if we can provide a service by establishing a QUALITY feed for those affected areas, sitting on only the old tower freqs, or perhaps the local unicom or multicom if used, as a way for pilots to review the quality of their radios, and determine if they need maintenance / replacement. I think some pilots would be amazed at how bad they can sound at times if they knew how to go about retrieving and listening to a stream archive when they land.

My thinking here is that a QUALITY feed is a must - no cast-off handheld scanners with a rubber duck need apply...
 
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pinballwiz86

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Cool idea! But I believe pilots will just have to resort to RCAG and ATIS. The sad part is all the job loss and airports going silent.
 

AlertNewEngland

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I'm not happy that the towers are closing, but if anything, this should enhance civil monitoring. The fields will all remain open, and landings will be coordinated air-air over CTAF. So now you'll be able to hear both sides of the conversation, whereas before you could only hear the tower side if you were close to the airport.
 

WAScanMan

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Our local tower is one that will be closing. I'm very upset to say the least, not just because I can't listen anymore but I'm concerned about the safety aspect and the fact 3 people will be losing their jobs. They were so good at what they did and you could tell they loved it.
 

KB1UAM

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I know my cities airport tower will be closing April 2nd. The airport is new Bedford regional airport. KEWB. Commercial flights will still be going in and out like capeair and other services.
 
D

DaveNF2G

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CTAF = Common Traffic Advisory Frequency. This is the general designation for what used to be known as Unicom and Multicom.

Has anyone actually sat down and counted the towers on the official closing list? I see numbers reported from 149 to 173 in various places.
 

KF6DGN

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Government spending it out of control. We need to make cuts somewhere. I doubt very few controlers will be out of a job, they will just be transferred to another airport that's not closing. With that said one of my local airports tower will close, RNM. When RNM didn't have a control tower people were killed: "The tower opened in 2003, eight years after two federal firefighting aircraft, a spotter plane and a large tanker returning from fighting a desert wildfire, collided over Ramona as they were landing. Three people in the planes were killed, and although debris rained down upon Ramona and set two houses on fire, no one was injured on the ground."

It's also interesting to note that the controlers at RMN are not federal employess but are contracted out to Serco Inc.
Closing air tower called potential disaster | UTSanDiego.com
 

b7spectra

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Sad to say, but almost can't wait for an accident to happen at a closed field. No, on second thought, nothing would happen. Sad, isn't it?
 

bravo14

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I use to listen to SGJ (St Augustine) When I lived there for 21 years. I was surprised to see them close the towers.
 

KB7MIB

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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en-US) Gecko/20081217 Vision-Browser/8.1 301x200 LG VN530)

Goodyear, AZ is one of the towers closing. It's a training airport for Lufthansa and the German air force, as well as general aviation pilots. I don't know if they'll stay when the tower closes.
 
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