In response to community requests, Santa Monica Airport recently began posting (here) monthly tail number reports derived from the newly installed system from “Vector Airport Solutions” designed to recognize aircraft tail numbers as they take off in order to administer the airport ‘Landing Fees’ program. CASMAT has prepared a report on the accuracy of the new system. The results show that the system currently misses from 20% to 40% of all SMO takeoffs, and that the vast bulk of the missed tail numbers are associated with pattern flying. Probable reasons for the shortcomings are given in the report, and we hope the city moves quickly to correct the problems found given the community focus on the negative impacts of pattern flying.
2/21/2012 – The report has been augmented to include comparison with the July 2011 CASMAT traffic report. Vector Solutions data for July 2011 was finally posted by airport staff on February 17, 2012 due to known issues with accuracy which took that long to resolve.