When President Twitter visits South Florida…

[kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

Trump's Florida visits puts small airport in tailspin

By TERRY SPENCER | Friday, February 17, 2017


Jorge Gonzalez, of Skywords Advertising, is seen with his Piper Super Cub at the hangar he rents at Lantana Airport in Latana, Florida. Gonzalez
said during a meeting with U.S. Representative Lois Frankel that he might have to shutter his business if President Trump continues to visit
Palm Beach and close the air space on weekends. — Photograph: Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/Associated Press.

LANTANA, FLORIDA — President Donald Trump wants small businesses to thrive, but his frequent Mar-a-Lago visits have flight schools and other companies at a nearby airport in a financial nosedive.

The Secret Service closed Lantana Airport on Friday for the third straight weekend because of the president's return to his Palm Beach resort, meaning its maintenance companies, a banner-flying business and another two dozen businesses are also shuttered, costing them thousands of dollars at the year's busiest time. The banner-flying company says it has lost more than $40,000 in contracts already.

The airport, which handles only small, propeller-driven planes and helicopters, is about 6 miles southwest of Mar-a-Lago, well within the 10-mile circle around the resort that’s closed to most private planes when he's in town. Trump flies into Palm Beach International Airport, which is 2.5 miles from Mar-a-Lago, and remains opens as it handles commercial flights. Small private planes can also use that airport during presidential visits if they meet certain stringent conditions.

The Lantana owners are pushing compromises they say will ensure Trump's security while keeping their businesses open. They involve letting pilots fly in a closely monitored corridor headed away from the resort until they are outside a 10-mile ban around Mar-a-Lago and a 30-mile zone where flying lessons are restricted. Pilots, planes and cargo would undergo preflight screening by Transportation Security Administration agents.

“None of us are suggesting that we shouldn't do everything to keep the president safe but we believe there are things that can be done to keep us in operation,” said Jonathan Miller, the contractor who operates the Palm Beach County-owned airport.

The airport and its 28 businesses have an economic impact of about $27 million annually and employ about 200 people full-time, many of them making about $30,000 a year. They don't get paid when the airport is closed.

Miller is already losing a helicopter company, which is moving rather than deal with the closures. That will cost him $440,000 in annual rent and fuel sales.

White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham directed questions to the Secret Service. The agency also declined comment. Flight restrictions have long been standard around buildings where a president is staying to protect him from an airborne attack.

U.S. Representative Lois Frankel, a Democrat who represents the area, met with the business owners this week. She said she will meet with the Secret Service next week to see if a compromise can be reached.

Lantana Airport opened in 1941 as a Civil Air Patrol station, with planes flying along the coast during World War II to spot German submarines attempting to sink cargo ships. Today, the 300-acre, three-runway facility handles an average of 350 arrivals and departures daily, peaking on winter weekends as tourists enjoy South Florida's temperate weather. Summer, with its stifling, visitor-repelling heat and the constant threat of plane-grounding thunderstorms, is not nearly as lucrative.

Marian Smith, owner of Palm Beach Flight Training, said her 19-year-old business is losing 24 flights daily when closed and three students cancelled. She lost $28,000 combined the last two weekends and will lose $18,000 on this President's Day weekend. She estimates her 19 instructors are each losing up to $750 a weekend.

“What's frustrating is that we get little notice when this is going to happen,” she said.

This week, rumours began during Monday. The closure notice arrived on Wednesday.

David Johnson, owner of Palm Beach Aircraft Services, said his 27-year-old repair and maintenance business generates $2 million in sales annually, but has taken a hit over the last month and he fears it will cascade if flight schools like Smith's close. He has written a letter he hopes gets delivered to Trump this weekend asking him, one businessman to another, to help resolve the conflict.

“Even if the TSA had to screen every pilot going out of here, we would be open to that,” Johnson said. “But so far, we've gotten nothing.”

Jorge Gonzalez, owner of SkyWords Advertising, a banner towing service, said his company lost four contracts totaling $42,500 because of Trump's visits. He wants exceptions made for three pilots to fly within the restricted zone when the president visits because it is where thousands of residents live and tourists stay.

“We have spent 10 years building this business,” said Gonzalez's wife, Hadley Doyle-Gonzalez. “We just can't pick up and move.”

• Associated Press news story.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/small-airport-businesses-to-trump-your-florida-visits-hurt/2017/02/17/a2cfddba-f535-11e6-9fb1-2d8f3fc9c0ed_story.html

[kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Los Angeles Times....

South Florida pilots learning that skies are less friendly
with airspace restrictions during Trump visits

By LISA J. HURIASH | 2:45PM PST - Saturday, February 04, 2017


Air Force One lands in Palm Beach, Florida. At least 27 aircraft have violated airspace restrictions near President Trump's estate.
— Photograph: Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press.

SOME PILOTS just aren't getting the message: They can't come and go as they please across South Florida's skies like they used to, at least not when the president is in town.

Since last month, at least 27 aircraft have violated a temporary restriction on the airspace near President Trump's estate in Palm Beach, federal officials say. And it's going to take some time and anxious moments for South Florida's aviation community to get used to it, experts say.

When President George W. Bush visited his ranch south of Dallas at the beginning of his presidency in 2001, there was a learning curve for pilots who “went out flying on a Saturday and didn't check,” recalls aviation attorney and former U.S. Air Force officer David Norton of Dallas.

If aviators don't comply, they'll be stunned to see a fighter pilot hanging off their wing, he said.

“The flying community will get used to it and they need to be careful: It can really catch you off guard,” he said.

With Mar-a-Lago serving as Trump's winter White House, South Florida faces becoming “real quiet” on weekends for air traffic, said Janet Marnane, a former Navy flight officer during the Cold War.

“These pilots are not used to having so many [restrictions] in this area, but they are going to get used to it real fast,” said Marnane, an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. “It is going to be the new normal, but only on the weekends.”

To heighten awareness of the restrictions, the Federal Aviation Administration says it plans to do more outreach to educate local pilots.

The president's schedule this weekend included a tour of an Orlando Catholic school for a meet-and-greet Friday, before he traveled to Palm Beach, where he was to attend the Republican National Committee spring retreat.

Trump is spending his fourth weekend in South Florida since becoming president; the three prior weekend visits came back-to-back in February.

Each time he visits, pilots within a 30-mile ring around the mansion must abide by the rules — or risk being intercepted by Air Force fighter jets.


President Donald J. Trump arrives at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida. — Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

During the president's visits to Mar-a-Lago in February, dozens of local aviators violated the airspace restrictions, including 14 times between February 17th and February 20th.

The FAA has declined to release the names of the pilots who violated the airspace restrictions or discuss their cases, citing ongoing investigations.

Pilots violating airspace restrictions might get off with a warning, but presidential-related intrusions likely will lead to a license suspension, Norton said.

Violators, after being forced to land, will “be met by Secret Service and you are going to spend many hours explaining why you were there,” Norton said.

Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for North American Aerospace Defense Command based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, said that fighter pilots scrambled to intercept planes in restricted airspace will often try to first get a pilot's attention with visual hand signals.

If that fails, they’ll “rock the wings,” which means the military jet will fly in front for attention and sway to each side signaling for the pilot to follow.

Another attention-grabbing method: the release of flares that are “essentially dropped in front of the pilot if all these other things don't work," he said.

Shooting down a plane “remains an option” although “that would be a very bad day,” he said.

One notable violation occurred last month when two Air Force F-15s hit supersonic speeds to intercept an aircraft, causing a sonic boom that residents heard from Broward to Palm Beach counties.

“I thought it was an actual bomb,” said Coral Springs Mayor Skip Campbell. “The house shook; you felt it vibrate.”

Jets having to reach supersonic speeds, about 750 mph, to intercept a violator is “atypical” and “situationally dependent,” Kucharek said. “We prefer not to go sonic over populated areas. It's done with the utmost caution so as not to alarm folks on the ground.”

Despite the FAA's outreach efforts, officials say it's up to pilots to safely conduct their flights. They're responsible for checking notices as part of their flight preparations so they're aware of any presidential-airspace issues that could affect them.

Pilots who hop on their aircraft for no other reason than to “buy a gallon of milk” will need to start checking in to learn of restrictions, said Michael Anthony Punziano, the owner of ATA Flight School in Pembroke Pines south of Palm Beach and a retired Air Force pilot.

“I wish he [Trump] was golfing at Camp David like Obama used to do,” he said.

• Lisa J. Huriash reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-trump-airspace-20170304-story.html

[Dave Homewood]

They have covered this a few times on the Airplane Geeks podcast. It really boggles the mind how the system there thinks their president is that important that so much disruption wherever the president goes is acceptable. How did it ever come to this? It's all patently ridiculous.

[kiwithrottlejockey]

Mind you....look on the bright side.

If you are resident in the area who likes fast military jets, you get your own airshow whenever F-15s break the sound barrier intercepting wayward private aviators.

It's a bit rough on aviation businesses in the area though, as reported on in the first of the two news stories I posted.

I hope they are suing the federal government for compensation.

[errolmartyn]

Rather an extravagant means of transporting a set of golf clubs and their owner, one would have thought!

Errol

[hardyakka]

I'm waiting for the day when a dozen Trump-baiting ultralight pilots all violate the TFR and fly around in a dozen different directions at 50 knots just to watch the F-16 pilots try to intercept them all without stalling and falling out of the sky. Perhaps the Florida ANG wil have to start using helicopters to blow them out of the TFR with rotor-wash...

[ZacYates]

After seeing the F-16 at Ohakea I've got a much better idea of the type's agility, but I think you may be on to something there. I doubt even "Smudge" would be able to get them!

[isc]

I think a Piper Cub would give an F-16 some problems. isc

[kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Los Angeles Times....

Trump protection, travel costs soar

The bill for the first family's first 100 days is at least $30 million.
Journeys include his sons' business trips.

By BARBARA DEMICK | 3:00AM PDT - Monday, May 08, 2017


New York police officers outside Trump Tower with sand-filled trucks, which serve as a protective barrier for the building.
— Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

NEW YORK — On the Thursday evening before Easter, photographers staking out Palm Beach International Airport in Florida awaiting President Trump were surprised to see not one but two Air Force planes arriving within minutes of each other.

Shortly before the president landed, Melania Trump arrived on a Boeing C-32 — a military version of a 757 — with their 11-year-old son, Barron, and other family members to spend the holiday at the Mar-a-Lago golf resort. Her one-way trip from New York, where she lives separately from her husband so their son can finish the school year, cost taxpayers more than $110,000.

Nobody questions that the safety of the president and his family is of vital national interest, or that the costs of first family travel and protection have soared in the age of terrorism.

But a unique set of circumstances has made the current presidential family the most expensive in history.

There is no standard methodology to tally travel and protection costs, but based on publicly available information reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, the total for Trump's first 100 days was at least $30 million. By comparison, the conservative think tank Judicial Watch found that costs for President Obama and his much smaller family averaged $12 million a year.

In the federal budget compromise reached last week, Congress allocated the Secret Service an additional $13 million to cover unanticipated overtime for its agents. It also set aside an extra $61 million to reimburse New York and Palm Beach for some of their expenses incurred since the election to protect the first family.

“Although the federal government does not otherwise reimburse costs of state or local law enforcement for activities in support of the United States Secret Service protection mission, these funds are being provided in recognition of the extraordinary costs borne by a small number of jurisdictions in which a residence of the president is located,” the budget bill stated.

The jump in costs is largely due to the fact that Trump has used three separate residences — the White House, Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago.

Over the weekend he added a fourth: the Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club where the family has traditionally spent summer weekends.

In addition to protecting the president and first lady, the Secret Service guards five children, their three spouses and eight grandchildren — 16 people in all. Since the election, Secret Service agents have accompanied the president's two adult sons on business trips to Dubai, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Ireland and Scotland.

Each “protectee” — as they are called by the Secret Service — gets his or her own security detail even when traveling together.

When Melania, Barron and the president’s younger daughter, Tiffany, recently visited Chelsea Piers, a sporting complex in Manhattan, 14 Secret Service vehicles waited outside.

And when Donald Trump Jr., wife Vanessa and their five children; Ivanka Trump and her three children; and Eric Trump, wife Lara and their two beagles went to Aspen, Colo., for spring break, they were accompanied by up to 100 Secret Service agents. Ski rentals for agents cost taxpayers $12,208, according to a government invoice uncovered by NBC News.

The most expensive property to protect is Trump Tower, the 58-story skyscraper in midtown Manhattan where Melania and Barron live in a penthouse and Donald Jr. and Eric have their offices.

The New York Police Department wrote in a letter to Congress that it was spending $127,000 to $146,000 a day to secure the building, in addition to the $4.5 million that the Fire Department expects to spend this year on security there. The costs are expected to decline after Melania moves to Washington this summer.

Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who had been assigned to former First Lady Michelle Obama, says the costs are justified because the security of the first lady has a direct bearing on the president's ability to function.

Even so, Wackrow said: “It's an astronomical expense. You have to set up a massive security structure for the first lady to operate outside of Washington with everything that support the detail, from cars to communications.”

“New York is a very complicated environment,” he added. “It’s not like you're working in Billings, Montana.”

On a weekday afternoon, cool and drizzling with nary a protester in sight — what should pass as a quiet day at Trump Tower — the building is a veritable fortress girded by at least 30 uniformed NYPD officers and at least that many Secret Service agents in bulletproof vests inspecting bags or guarding the elevators and doors.

There also is a fleet of two dozen armored SUVs, mobile police stations, police cars and other vehicles, including a strategically placed garbage truck that blocks the private garage through which members of the Trump family enter and leave the building. More security forces are tucked away in surrounding high-rises.


President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrive at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in February.
— Photograph: Susan Walsh/Associated Press.

Mar-a-Lago is another big expense. Palm Beach County says its overtime runs $60,000 a day when Trump is visiting, and was $250,000 for the weekend when Chinese President Xi Jinping joined him. The county is considering turning the Mar-a-Lago resort into a special taxing district to recoup the money being spent on Trump.

Since taking office, Trump has spent seven weekends at the resort, each trip costing at least $1 million, with some estimates running up to $3.6 million. The biggest chunk of that is the $142,000 an hour it costs to fly Air Force One.

Melania Trump has flown separately on five occasions either to or from Palm Beach, according to the Palm Beach Post. Public accounts of her appearances show she has also made at least eight round-trip flights to Washington, D.C., since the inauguration.

The Air Force said that it could not immediately provide her flight records but that each hour of flying on the Boeing C-32 — the largest and most expensive of the three planes she uses — costs $38,922.

“It is all about security,” Wackrow said. “The first lady needs to be in constant communication with the president and she has no ability to do that on a non-military aircraft.”

More controversial is the foreign travel of Donald Jr. and Eric, who make frequent splashy trips to Trump-branded properties.

“You have people with not only heavy travel schedules but heavy business schedules with enormous public profiles,” said Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who is now active in Republican politics in Florida. “Donald Trump Jr. is like a brand in and of itself.”

Fireworks lighted up the sky over Dubai in mid-February when the Trump brothers hosted a private party for 1,500 people to open the Trump International Golf Club, events that were guarded at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. The costs have not yet been made public, but a shorter trip by Eric Trump to promote a Trump Tower in Punta Del Este, Uruguay, ran up $97,830 in hotel bills for Secret Service agents, State Department personnel and local law enforcement officials, according to government records found by The Washington Post.

A former Secret Service agent said a trip of that type would have required at least 20 agents — field officers, intelligence officers, day- and night-shift agents, and drivers — and that they might have gone ahead by two weeks to prepare. Secret Service agents are reimbursed for food and lodging at the State Department daily rate, which for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is up to $553.

“You don't want a family member of the president to go unprotected, but what you really have here are … taxpayers subsidizing Trump's business activity,” said Norman Eisen, who served as ethics czar under Obama and now heads the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The cost of protecting Obama and his family during the previous administration drew the ire of Republican columnists and politicians, including Trump. “President @barackobama's vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars — Unbelievable!” he tweeted in January 2012 while the Obama family was visiting Hawaii.

Judicial Watch frequently skewered Obama for travel and security spending, estimating that each winter vacation in Hawaii cost taxpayers about $4 million.

“The Obamas' notorious abuse of presidential travel perks wasted military resources and stressed the Secret Service,” the watchdog's president, Tom Fitton, said in a news statement in December. “…President-elect Trump can immediately save taxpayers money by reforming presidential travel.”

Now Fitton says his group has filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act for an exact accounting of spending under Trump and will sue agencies that fail to comply.

He defended Trump's right to visit his home on weekends, especially because the president is working.

But he encouraged Trump to play golf closer to home — on the Virginia golf course he owns, for example — or to follow the lead of past presidents and make Camp David in Maryland his main retreat.

“There should be some sensitivity on his part,” Fitton said. “He owns planes so he knows what it costs to fly one.”

__________________________________________________________________________

Here's the bottom line after the first 100 days


President Trump returns to the Washington area last month. The president spent seven weekends at his
Palm Beach, Florida, resort in his first 100 days. — Photograph: Alex Brandon/Associated Press.

Trump Tower: $21 million

New York City said in a letter to Congress in February that guarding Trump Tower costs its Police Department $127,000 to $146,000 a day and its Fire Department $12,328 a day. The Secret Service asked Congress for $26.8 million for the year to protect the building. All of that comes to about $212,000 a day, or for the first 100 days, $21 million.

Weekends at Mar-a-Lago: $8 million

The president spent seven weekends at the Palm Beach, Florida, resort in his first 100 days. It is impossible to separate protection and travel costs when it comes to the president, because security protocol calls for him to fly in military aircraft. Flying Air Force One round trip to Palm Beach costs $669,186, according to information recently obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Secret Service costs add $300,000 or so. Palm Beach County says it has spent at least $2 million on providing security for these weekends. The flying costs, Secret Service and local security add up to about $8 million. It's hard to distinguish what's for business and what's for leisure on these trips; Trump made speeches in Florida at the end of some visits.

Melania Trump's flights: $1.13 million

Because the first lady lives in New York, she sometimes flies separately to Palm Beach. She has made two round trips and two one-way trips, according to the Palm Beach Post. She has also made at least six trips to Washington since the inauguration. The planes assigned to her vary in price from the C-40 at $18,218 an hour to the C-32 at $38,922 an hour. For short hops, she often takes a Gulfstream C-37 at $27,127 an hour. The Air Force declined to provide flight logs. But if she used the larger aircraft for the three-hour flights to Palm Beach and the smallest plane for the one-hour trips between New York and Washington, the total comes to $1.13 million.

Business trips by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump: $1 million

One or the other brother has visited Dubai, Scotland, Ireland, the Dominican Republic and Canada since their father took office. The Secret Service won't say how many agents go on any given trip, but experts said that guarding the brothers would have required at least 20 agents, some of whom may arrive two weeks early. Airfare varies by destination, as does the government's daily reimbursement rate for hotel and meals ($553 in Dubai, for example). The Los Angeles Times estimated an average of $200,000 for each trip, or a total of $1 million.

Ski trip to Aspen, Colorado: $165,000

Each of Trump's five children, their three spouses and his eight grandchildren has Secret Service protection. In March, Donald Trump Jr., his wife and five children, Ivanka Trump and her three children, Eric Trump and his wife were accompanied to Aspen by as many as 100 Secret Service agents. A trip to the ski town by former First Lady Michelle Obama and her two daughters in February cost the Secret Service $165,000, according to records released to the conservative think tank Judicial Watch. The Trumps cost at least that.

www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-trump-costs-20170508-story.html

---

NOTE: That article is taken directly from the print edition of the Los Angeles Times published on Monday, May 08, 2017, but with a link to the online version. The supplementary piece down the bottom of the article was published with the original article in the print edition, but is missing from the L.A. Times' online website.

[ZacYates]

It really is incredible. I can't wrap my head around that much money, let alone for travel - I can't imagine how many museums and airshows I'd be able to attend!