Having been in a small 4 seat plane coming back from St. George, flying about 180 MPH and seeing an other small plan flying about the same speed coming the opposite direction, I was glad that we were at different elevations, but not by much. We had no warning, as the plane I was in didn't have a "fish finder", small radar system. I was sitting in the Co-Pilot chair as there were only two of us in the plane. We were surprised that no one from the Air Traffic Tower didn't mention something, but it was very likely that they had noticed we were at different elevations and in our "lanes" and so it shouldn't have been a problem. Without someone in these small towers, who would be warning the small planes there was a problem? We had been warned about someone crossing our path at at a different occasion. Landing and take off at the St. George airport was interesting, as we just announced to anyone that might be listening that we were landing, or taking off and hoped that SkyWest pilots were listening to the correct frequency.We were comforted that someone in Cedar City was listening.
Closing these Air Traffic Towers is about as stupid as DABC (Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control) a few years ago saying they were closing down 40% of their best stores when the legislature had a 7% across the board cut among several agencies, including them. DABC was acting like a small child throwing a media temper tantrum, and temporarily got their way with the Governor working to find them a few extra $ Million.
Lucky for taxpayers that the Office of the Legislative Auditor General, who works for the Legislature later found their stash of $ Millions they had already been squirreling away and other major problems, something that our previous State Auditor's office had missed.
Because Congress has been unwilling to pass a budget since Pres. Obama has been in office, they did agree to some automatic cuts of about 2%. The Feds are acting just like DABC did.
We shouldn't let these small children throwing a media temper tantrum win, We should replace those in charge, just like we did at DABC.
