Journal AB3A's Journal: Coming Soon, An ADIZ near you! 2
Imagine that you can't even go once around the pattern at your local airport without a flight plan, calling your local TRACON, getting a squawk code, and then a release time. That could be you.
Now imagine that it's a holiday, the skies are blue, the weather is fabulous, and you're sitting on the ground in a sun baked airplane hitting redial for the umpteenth time and not getting through to pick up your clearance. Half an Hour of engine runtime later, you finally pick up a squawk code and departure frequency.
That was me on Labor Day. My kids were with me and we intended to meet friends for a picnic lunch at First Flight Airport (Kitty Hawk, NC). People sigh and say, well, Homeland Security comes first.
And I'd agree --except that the ADIZ and FRZ in DC do not impede a terrorist one bit. What most do not understand is that you can't wall off a piece of sky. The airspaces we have assigned around the country are there for SAFETY reasons, not defense.
In other words, if someone is launching a rocket, shining a laser, or firing live ammunition in to the air for testing purposes, then they can reserve the airspace above them and advise pilots that they are there. This prevents accidents.
However, when some Federal Muckety Muck wants a Temporary Flight Restriction around them and their activities, they must not fool themselves in to thinking that it prevents aircraft from flying over. It doesn't do that any more than a traffic light prevents people from entering the intersection when it is red. Just ask that idiot from Smoketown PA who flew his trainer aircraft over DC a few months ago.
All it could do is help identify a strange aircraft which doesn't belong --or does it? What's to keep some twit from lying on his flight plan form? Tell the Feds that you're flying a small Cessna and instead fly slow in a jet.
So, how close can you get? Well, when coming back from Kitty Hawk, I entered the ADIZ at the South East side WHINO fix and proceeded north toward my home base at FME. During that time I heard Potomac Approach giving Vectors to Air Force 1. Meanwhile the flight path I was given was right on the edge of the FRZ: I was shaving by with less than a half a mile to spare. I was so disconcerted that I pushed my flight path eastward to stay > 1 nm away from the edge. It would not have been hard to get in AF-1's way.
Now the FAA wants to make the ADIZ and FRZ permenant. They used all sorts of smoke and mirror analysis. This must be the kind of analysis that they teach in MBA school. Very careful reasoning, but the assumptions were all nonsense.
These folks must think that naked emperors are ordinary, everyday occurences. I don't understand why so many think this nonsense is a good idea. If Joe Terrorist wants to bust in to the airspace, nobody, Not Even the Air Force, can stop him. Oh, and if, by some chance he does get intercepted and shot down, what happens to the ammunition and flaming wreckage? Why, pretty much what Joe Terrorist wanted in the first place!
Let's get real: Terrorists have lots of ways to terrorize. Using airliners worked once. It has been tried since. It doesn't work. Passengers won't put up with it. Just ask Richard Reed (who is very lucky to be alive right now).
Furthermore, General Aviation aircraft are too small to make a terrific amount of damage. Al Qaida did research the use of small aircraft and they discarded the whole idea --though that hasn't stopped the FAA and DHS pukes from trying to act as though it might be dangerous.
General Aviation has never been a threat. I'm tired of swiping a security card to get my car in to an airfield. I'm tired of filing flight plans for every silly little thing. I'm just plain disgusted with all these idiotic temporary flight restrictions that follow the President and Vice President wherever they go.
Couldn't we just try some sanity for a change? I promise not to wear my boogieman outfit...
ARe there publically available maps? (Score:2)
I'm not an aviator, but live in the D.C. area, and am curious about this - is there a publically accessible map showing the no-fly zones?
Re:ARe there publically available maps? (Score:2)
To my knowledge, these charts are not available online. I don't know why. You can see the ADIZ with the FRZ in the middle here [faa.gov].
However, this chart lacks most other details you might need to understand where I was and the flightpath I took. WHINO intersection is roughly where the Patuxent river crosses the outer boundary of the ADIZ.
Generally, I f