Cuts Ground Blue Angels, Hill Air Force Base Squadron, Other Navy, Air Force Aircraft

"You get what you're willing to pay for," as the old saying goes

Troubling news this morning from both the Standard-Examiner and Salt Lake Tribune, whose below-linked stories both painfully demonstrate that civil aviation buffs at Ogden-Hinkley Field aren't the only Utah airport devotees whose interests are threatened by impending, meat cleaver-style 2013 federal sequestration budget cuts.  "The U.S. Air Force plans to ground about a third of its active-duty force of combat planes — including a squadron based at Hill Air Force Base — and the U.S. Navy cancelled the rest of the popular Blue Angels’ aerobatic team’s season because of automatic federal budget cuts," according to the Tribune's AP wire story.

• Hill F-16 squadron grounded in budget cuts
• Cuts ground Blue Angels, Hill Air Force Base squadron, other Navy, Air Force aircraft

Bad news for our nation's air combat capability, and even worse news for the wildly popular Hill AFB-situated Utah Air Show, for sure.

"For affected units, the Air Force says it will shift its focus to ground training," according to yesterday's Trib story.

"You get what you're willing to pay for," as the old saying goes.

Breaking: FAA: Ogden-Hinckley Airport Tower Will Close

Distraught Ogden-Hinkley Airport manager:  “We have no clue what’s going to happen next”

In a still-developing story, The Standard-Examiner breaks the worst possible news for Ogden-Hinkley Airport boosters, as it announces the highly-disappointing information that despite the desperate efforts of Ogden Airport officials and GOP Congressman-for-Life Rob Bishop to gain a reprieve, federal funding for the airport's main control tower is about to get the budget sequestration ax.

Ogden-Hinkley Control Tower

According to this afternoon's Mitch Shaw story, "[t]he FAA notified Airport Manager Royal Eccles through an email that the Ogden-Hinckley tower is one of 173 across the country that will close as part of an FAA effort to reduce expenditures by more than $600 million for the remainder of the 2013 fiscal year":

• FAA: Ogden-Hinckley Airport tower will close

“I assumed they would just close all of them. So I was prepared for the worst, but it’s still tough to take. We don’t really know what’s going to happen now,” said the thoroughly distraught Airport Manager Royal Eccles.

"The airport will remain open, but pilots will be responsible for their own safety by talking to each other, instead of the tower. The federal funding paid for contracted air traffic controllers," according to this morning's S-E story.

This of course appears "on its face" to be a severe blow to Ogden-Hinkley commercial operations, insmuch as "[a]irlines (like Allegiant Air) have yet to say whether they will continue offering service to airports that lose tower staff."

So, will commercial carriers like Allegiant continue operations at Ogden-Hinkley in the absence of a functioning air traffic control operation, we ask? Weirdly enough, some regional carriers don't seem to have necessarily ruled out that contingency at all, if we're to believe at least one Oregon-based news source, speaking of similar control tower closures in the Pacific Northwest:

According to an airport industry association, control towers at 14 small to medium sized airports around the Northwest will close on April 1 in response to automatic federal budget cuts: Four in Idaho and five each in Oregon and Washington. But regional airlines intend to keep flying to those cities they now serve.

Read that astonishing full story below.  Seeing is believing, right?

• Regional Airlines Intend To Keep Flying If Control Towers Close

Wing and a Prayer Arrival

So what about it, O Gentle Ones?  Will our newly-arrived Alliant Air pilots be henceforth flying in and out of Ogden "by the seat of their pants," under the trusty protection of an old-style "wing and a prayer?" Or do Ogden City Lumpencitizens need to brace themselves, and hold tightly onto their wallets, for what may well turn out to be a quite hefty Ogden City Council emergency air traffic control funding request coming up VERY soon?  Would it be hopelessly tacky inelegant sophomoric to summarize by saying that despite disappointing recent developments, the future of Ogden-Hinkley Airport is still "up in the air"? Would it be overkill to predict that Ogden-Hinkley's insurance costs may very well "soar sky high" in the event that Alliance does elect to continue commercial operations under these risk-heightened circumstances?

Needless to say, we'll remain poised at the keyboard awaiting any further news on this story which might meander our way.

Take it away for now however, O Gentle Ones.

Standard-Examiner: Ogden Control Tower’s Future in Limbo After FAA Postpones Decision

Standing by awaiting the next installment in this gripping Ogden City airport economic development disaster drama; but first, a few pertinent and probing questions

For those Weber County Forum readers sitting on the edges of their seats, breathlessly awaiting news about whether the Federal Aviation Administration will follow through with its federal budget sequester-propelled decision to shut down airport towers at 189 U.S. airports, including Ogden's own recently bustling "Ogden-Hinkley Field", the Standard-Examiner informs us that due to the frantic efforts of Ogden City airport officials (and at least one federal legislator), Ogden-Hinkley's projected tower closure has been postponed, at least for another couple of days:

• Ogden control tower’s future in limbo after FAA postpones decision

Mitch Shaw's March 21 story reports that Ogden-Hinkley Airport Manager Royal Eccles has been feverishly burning the midnight oil and has prepared and submitted a "detailed, nearly 2,000-word response to the FAA, answering the question of why an Ogden tower closure would adversely affect the national interest."

Rep. Bishop "weighs in"

Not to be outdone by the "local yokels," Congressional District 1 Dynamo Rob Bishop also took a little time off from his normal and pressing congressional duties (hammering President Obama), and encouragingly added his considerable political weight to to Eccles's "national security" argument, by firing off a stern letter to the FAA, adopting, cut-and-paste-style we presume,  most of Eccles' desperate and frenzied talking points, Mr. Shaw further reports.

We'll be be standing by awaiting the next installment in this gripping Ogden City airport economic development disaster drama of course; but in the meantime we'll open the WCF floor for discussion with a few pertinent and probing questions:

So what say our Gentle WCF Readers about all this?  Will Mr. Eccles' "personal job security interests" be ultimately protected right along with our America's "national security interests," with a last-minute reversal of the FAA's Ogden-Hinkley airport control tower closure plan? Will the FAA back down now that Congressman Bishop's taken to throwing his whopping political weight around? Will Ogden-Hinkley Airport survive long enough to ignore the airport tower closure kerfuffle, follow the Provo Airport's lead, adopt Provo's "full speed ahead approach" and commence commercial air service to more exotic travel destinations (such as Oakland, California) some time soon?

So many questions... so few answers... right?

Standard-Examiner: Feds Want to Shut Down Ogden Airport Control Tower

“It’s not good news. It’s not good news at all,” sez Ogden-Hinkley Airport Manager Royal Eccles

The sky is the limit. There are options to grow. The ability to bring people in and move people out at a (reasonable) cost is just great.

Royal Eccles, Manager, Ogden-Hinckley Airport
Ogden airport going commercial
Sept. 17 2012

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Robert Burns, Scots Poet
To a Mouse
1785

Airport Bosters in HappierTimes

Amidst all the hoopla concerning Ogden-Hinkley Airport's recent expansion , and particularly with regard to the even more recent arrival of much-ballhooed commercial service by Allegiant Air, this morning's more than slightly unsettling Standard-Examiner story casts some troubling doubt on the commercial future of Ogden-Hinkley Airport, as upcoming and clownishly random federal budget sequestration spending cuts throw a monkey wrench into the grand plans and schemes of some rabid Ogden boosters.  Here's this morning's bad news, Ogden City lumpencitizens, straight from the pages of our home-town newspaper:

•  Feds want to shut down Ogden airport control tower

"The federal government wants to shut down Ogden-Hinckley Airport’s one and only control tower, a move that officials say would be devastating to the airport’s future, particularly its commercial jet service," this morning's Standard-Examiner grimly reports.

“It’s not good news. It’s not good news at all,” sez Airport Manager Royal Eccles, in a truly masterful display of understatement.

If Ogden's tower closes, "Ogden-Hinckley faces the prospect of laying off all five of its air traffic controllers," according to yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune story:

• Spending cuts may force control towers at 2 Utah airports to close

Needless to say, this alarming news has set Ogden-Hinkley's airport officials scrambling:

"Eccles said he and other city officials are working feverishly to compile [information about how the closure of a particular tower will adversely affect the national interest”] and plead the airport’s case. Eccles said work is also underway to recruit the help of Utah’s Congressional Delegation," this morning's S-E story reassures its readers (as if Utah's congressional delegation actually has any real "political juice" whatsoever, regarding this political hot potato).

Ogden-Hinkley's Future?

Something tells us that Mr. Eccles and his fellow airport cronies have an uphill fight in pleading that an Ogden-Hinkley tower closure would "adversely affect the national interest ,” inasmuch as both Hill Air Force Base and Salt Lake International Airport are conveniently situated a virtual stone's throw down the road. So perhaps it's time to pose the sodden (and pregnant) question:

Would it be prudent for Weber County Forum's old pal Royal Eccles to get to work compiling his own job resume, right along with his "national interest argument," just in case "circumstances" suddenly transform Hinkley Field from a booming intrastate commercial air traffic up-and-comer to a sleepy general aviation airport with neither a need a fancy control tower, NOR for a grossly overpaid Airport Manager?

Just a thought...