$8 million radar to nowhere
Your tax dollars at work thanks to King of Pork John Murtha. Pennsylvania, why did you put this hog back in office. Why? (h/t William Amos):
A state-of-the-art radar system that has sat idle for years at a local airport has never been used because there has been no one to operate it, officials said.
The Digital Airport Surveillance Radar, or DASR, was built at the Johnstown-Cambria County Airport in 2004 with $8 million from the Department of Defense.
“It’s been out there spinning, ready to go. But, there’s no manpower,” said airport manager Scott Voelker.
Voelker said for a small airport like Johnstown, DASR is a big deal. It would help air traffic controllers track airplanes up to 120 miles away, instead of five or 10 miles. It would give pilots the weather forecast an hour before it happened.
The radar system was built with the help of earmarks form Rep. John Murtha and was paid for by the Department of Defense. When it was built five years ago, DASR was expected to give an economic boost by creating 14 air traffic control jobs and lure more and bigger planes into the region.
But, because it’s also a training ground for the Pennsylvania National Guard, it’s never been manned.
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Categories: John Murtha, Pork
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Quick, who built and installed it, and how do they know Johnnyboy?
From the link:
Lord help us…
Apparently, the folks in western PA love guys who waste taxpayer money and call the voters names.
Because 2008 was the banner year for Dumba$$ Voters. But, you knew that already.
“Ah, it’s just a minor blip on the screen, no way is it a Japanese sneak attack!”
Well sure, the Johnstown-Cambria County Airport isn’t known as the O’Hare of the…hmm…the wherever for nothing!
BTW, I think any radar from the 50s could see Murtha’s fat a$$ from 100 miles away…
A radar system that no one watches. Classic.
Nice work Murtha.
I bet there’s a company in his district that gets paid to maintain it.
I lived in Pittsburgh, PA for 6 years. THAT is the airport that any large (commercial, cargo, etc.) jets will fly into. Johnstown? You have GOT to be kidding. What a joke.
Move the radar to Pittsburgh airport. It will probably get more use there.
An excellant example of Congress forcing the DOD to accept something that they did not want, need, or plan for.
An alternate arguement would have been, had the money been removed, that the DOD budget was being cut. Yes, there would have been members of Congress in high dungeon because we were (and still are) at war. Who wanted to be the ‘panty waste’ to challenge a DOD appropriation?
Somehow and someway, we have to come to terms with providing DOD with what they want and need, and not what the Congress wants them to have. And, not to be cowed by those going high dungeon and using an arguement about cutting DOD spending and being soft on defense.
The reality is that many Congressionally sponsored DOD projects should be cut without someone being called soft on defense.
Exaggerrating for effect, cutting the expenditures for spurs for the Cavalry is a good idea, because today, the Cavalry is less about horses and more about helicopters.
Rep Murtha is more symptom than a desease, and it is the desease that truly needs to be addressed.
And by the way.. the official name of the airport is…
John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport
zyzzyg, make you a deal. How about we treat the disease one symptom at a time. Sooner or later, the rest of the symptoms would quietly disappear.
I can see Russia from my house…
Since we’re talking about Murtha…
In principle I agree. Murtha is just one of the poster children. The V-22 Osprey being another fine example.
I would venture to say that Murtha probably does have a very responsive staff that quickly helps constituents when they call asking for help.
As the saying goes, “All politics is local.” If between his Marine-bashing and bribe-taking and earmark-writing, he helps out his constituents when they come a-calling, then it is, sad to say, a no-brainer.
Thanks for the hat tip Michelle
They kept the V-22, but killed the Texas Superconducting Super Collider. There is no telling how many Billions of dollars were lost from the research, computer technology advancements, and particle physics engineering that would have been retained in the US, rather than going to the French at the CERN lab. And we would have already gone far beyond the physics answers that the LHC is still not even ready to BEGIN to experiment on.
For the record, the V-22 is working just fine in Iraq. I see it flying nearly every day. Just because it had problems early on does not mean it was a waste of money. The Harriers had issues early on too. As did the Higgins boats (precursor to AAV), tanks, etc. Innovation is not without risk and is usually worth it in the long run.
As a Hawaii resident, I resent strongly any U.S. Representative or Senator from any state other than Hawaii being called “King of Pork.”
The Osprey is a fine aircraft on the cutting edge of technology. There is nothing else out there that can perform with it. If you used developmental “issues” to kill aircraft, we wouldn’t have Blackhawk helicopters or F16 fighters either.
The Air Force and the Marines wanted the Osprey. It was cuts in funding that put it up on the block. It was saved by Congressmen/Senators for admittedly selfish reasons, but there is nothing out there that can perform its missions.
ECS
Who was the contractor who “won” the contract to build that boondoggle? And how much did they kick back to that slob?
Murtha should be place in the pillory and the people of the 12th Congressional District of Pennsylvania (Johnstown) should be ashamed of themselves. Re-electing a criminal time and again is just stupid.
Perhaps the radar is used to track the aircraft which was going to be redeployed from Iraq to Okinawa.
So it would be quite fitting to name after that good-for-nothing Murtha!
A thoughtful proposition, but no thanks. How long would it take to sift through 535 individuals with their own agendas? And then there is the concern that those voted out of office will be replaced with a new person who will want to work the system to their advantage, too.
Yes, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. And, unfortunately the human condition is such that if the system allows you to, more often than not, you will do it. Note: It isn’t illegal, just an accepted practice that has mestaticized.
Fix the system (the desease) and the symptoms, all of them, go away.
Exaggerrating for effect (and, maybe some laughs) -
Aircraft Carriers are large targets and would be subject to attack even though they travel in battle groups. Something should be done to better protect them. OK, make them submersible. Being submersible would make them stealthy and more difficult to attack.
The technical problems will be worked out over time. It will be the cutting edge of modernity and nothing will be able to threaten a submersible Air Craft Carrier.
If you are against this program, you are soft on defense and a panty waste. Moreover, there are jobs that will be at stake. And, now you are threatening the American worker and the American Dream of middle class stability. Don’t you love America? We need the submersible Air Craft Carrier.
Yep, just because we can (make a submersible Air Craft Carrier) doesn’t mean we should.
There are the real needs and wants of DOD, good and bad ideas, and then . . . there is Congress.
Well, they don’t call it the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport for nothing. Here’s the remarkably busy schedule that justifies such use of taxpayer dollars: three flights to and three flights from Washington Dulles Airport daily. Sure, there’s other traffic (privately-owned planes, Army Reserve/National Guard helicopters, etc.), but good grief. Having flown to this place before, I can tell you that the term “crop duster” doesn’t quite cover it.
But we already have – its called the USS Oriskany.
lol, currently its called a Frigate. While they are the taxi cabs of the US Navy, think of them as a Secret Service agent who jumps in front of a bullet.
Puleeze. This isn’t exclusively a DOD spending issue.
Fill in the blanks below. Almost anything fits;
“The reality is that many Congressionally sponsored ______ projects should be cut without someone being called anti-_________.”
Sounds like the PA National Guard never got Title 10 funding from Rep. Murtha for these positions and that instead Murtha wants the State to pay for them as Title 32 positions.
Well Colgan Air which serves that bustling airport thrice daily gets your tax money to do so, even though they could have selected a cheaper airline…Dems and Repubs all approve…Lucky for Murtha – an airline miraculously goes to his home despite lack of passengers…
Being a former Air Force radar troop, I think this radar is funded by the FAA, not DOD. However, if it was optimized for Operation Noble Eagle (since the military likes to look for low-flying aircraft, and the the FAA likes to look at high-flyers), it’s possible that the Air Force may be funding the antenna and systems optimizations.
From the text provided by MM -
The radar system was built with the help of earmarks form Rep. John Murtha and was paid for by the Department of Defense.
Saying it again, with added parenthetical reference in italics -
An excellant example of Congress forcing the DOD to accept something (money and/or systems) that they did not want, need, or plan for.
Ah. I didn’t see that. I completely agree. This is not a DOD radar. It’s an air route surveillance radar (ARSR) type used by the FAA, so it sounds like something hokey is going on. Not surprising, though. There usually is with anything having to do with Murtha.
Correction:
I just realized that this is an ASR (Air Surveillance Radar) instead of an ARSR. Only difference is the range of the radar is smaller. Still an FAA radar.