mgomez

mgomez

Well Known Member
Good News...extension Of ADIZ Comment Period

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This headline was just posted on the AOPA site

"Mineta announces comment extension, public meetings on ADIZ during AOPA Expo appearance"

Go to AOPA to get the full story.

Looks like Mineta has directed the FAA to allow another 90 days to comment on the ADIZ.

Okay, now all you guys and gals have no excuse...send your comments in. The AOPA site tells us how to do it.

Don
__________________

VAF #517
VAF Alabama Wing
RV-7 elevators
N517D reserved



Go here to submit comments:
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Fellow pilots:

This is our last chance to submit our comments to the FAA's proposal to make the Washington ADIZ permanent. Less than 5% of our nation's pilots have responded. This is an embarrassing demonstration of apathy, which our government can use as an excuse for ignoring those of us who did respond.

I know most of you live far from Washington, but just because the government hasn't imposed this in your area doesn't mean they won't.

Please consider going to AOPA's web site, following the links, and responding. I append my own comments in case you need inspiration:

I am a commercial pilot with ASEL and instrument ratings. I have 900+ hours, accumulated with pleasure, business, and AngelFlight flying. I am based in Manassas, VA (KHEF), where my flying club keeps its airplane, a Piper Warrior.

I am strongly opposed to making the Washington ADIZ permanent, for the following reasons. In fact, I?m opposed to keeping the ?temporary? ADIZ:

1. It provides a false sense of security. If terrorists want to attack Washington using an airplane, the ADIZ won?t stop them. It does, however, inconvenience me and thousands of other law-abiding pilots.
2. Most of the airplanes affected by the ADIZ weigh less than a Honda Civic, and much less than a Chevrolet Suburban. If a terrorist wants to attack Washington, they can drive several tons of explosives with the SUV of their choice up to the government building of their choice.
3. If a terrorist wants to attack Washington by flying his Cessna through the ADIZ, he can?he?ll just have his pilot?s license suspended posthumously.
4. When the government implements restrictions upon the rental of Ryder trucks, similar to the one that was used to attack the Murrah building in Oklahoma City in 1995, I will accept restrictions on general aviation.
5. The FAA has implemented the ADIZ in a lackadaisical fashion, suggesting that they, too, believe it is little more than a symbolic gesture. As one example, they allow traffic pattern flights at controlled fields in the ADIZ with no flight plan. For a 200 knot airplane, such airports are minutes away from the Mall. Another example: although from the earliest days of the ADIZ flight plans were required to be filed by telephone (not via DUATS), every instrumented rated pilot I know filed an IFR flight plan via DUATS as a means of bypassing the lengthy telephone hold lines. The FAA did nothing to stop this practice, despite being clearly in violation of the NOTAM. Are we to assume that terrorists don?t have instrument ratings?
6. Must we actually shoot down a governor attending a state funeral before we decide the ADIZ does more harm than good? Or can we be smart and take this lesson at its face value?
7. In November 2003, I inadvertently violated the ADIZ by about 1 mile, and had my license suspended for 30 days. At the time, I held a security clearance issued by the DoD, which pretty much rules out any ties to terrorism. During the flight in question, I had my wife and two children (aged 6 and 4) onboard. My flight, and my violation, posed no threat to anybody, yet the FAA claims ? in all seriousness ? that I was at risk of being shot down and having my family killed. Note that during this flight I had filed a flight plan to get back into the ADIZ, and was on my way to pick it up when I drifted into the ADIZ. If this waste of government time and money is not enough to call the value of the ADIZ into question, then even the REMOTEST possibility of spuriously killing a family of four US citizens should be. Imagine how the pilot of that F-16 would have felt!

Thanks,
Martin
 
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Thanks for the reminder

Just got mine in:


The ADIZ in Washington DC should be abolished.


1. The ADIZ is a politically motivated public relations stunt. It plays upon the ignorance of the public concerning general aviation in order to placate fears of terrorism. The cost of this farce is the freedoms of thousands of private pilots.

2. Most of the airplanes affected by the ADIZ weigh less than a small car, and much less than an SUV. If a terrorist wants to attack Washington, there are much more attractive land-bound options that have received absolutely no regulatory attention.

3. General aviation aircraft have never been used for a successful terrorist attack. On the other hand, SUVs and rental trucks have been used in many successful terrorist attacks. I have yet to see any restrictions whatsoever placed on SUVs and rental trucks in the DC area

4. Why is there no huge ADIZ over New York city? Chicago? Los Angeles? If the ADIZ is so effective and necessary, then why not apply it everywhere? The answer is that it is neither effective nor necessary.

5. The Washington DC ADIZ is enormous and is catastrophic to general aviation in the DC area, yet it has been shown to be entirely incapable of the protection that authorities purport it to provide. The cost of this program far outweighs the security it provides.
 
Not to mention the extra workload imposed on pilots and air traffic controllers. I've commented.
 
Playing the devil's advocate for a moment... I sorta see both sides of the problem here.

A large/fast GA plane (RV10) would be an easy target for a terrorist- it would be easy to steal one (no real security at GA airports) and then load it with explosives (even a dirty bomb), or use it to spread biological/chemical contaminants.

The only real downside is that most small planes are not designed to haul a lot of weight like a cargo plane, but could still do a lot of damage with explosives + full fuel tanks. :eek:
 
I posted my objections last week through the AOPA site. Taking freedom from the public in general will not stop those who are not law abiding in the first place. I cannot improve on what was said many years ago.

"People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security." (Benjamin Franklin)
 
adiz troubles

it is unfortunate that more pilots aren't involved enough to be aware that these issues begin in one place and creep across the nation. this is not unlike other government programs, and generally results in loss of freedom or added burdens to the people in general. those who took time to comment deserve our collective "Thanks."

james kleen
savannah
 
Dc Adiz

cobra said:
Playing the devil's advocate for a moment... I sorta see both sides of the problem here.

A large/fast GA plane (RV10) would be an easy target for a terrorist- it would be easy to steal one (no real security at GA airports) and then load it with explosives (even a dirty bomb), or use it to spread biological/chemical contaminants.
Click to expand...
Rental trucks have already been used in the US to deliver bombs. There don't seem to be any bans on those. How hard would it be to borrow, steal, or rent an 18-wheeler? They can carry over 40 tons. Seems kind of inconsistent.

If you want to spread biological or chemical agents, flying overhead, even with a crop duster, is stupid and inefficient. Just put the delivery mechanism into the back of a pickup truck or van, and drive slowly around the city where the people are. Then you don't have 90% of it blown downwind. Almost all these lethal contaminants are odorless and colorless.

cobra said:
The only real downside is that most small planes are not designed to haul a lot of weight like a cargo plane, but could still do a lot of damage with explosives + full fuel tanks.
Click to expand...
"a lot of damage" is difficult to quantify. It seems a couple of kilograms of explosives strapped to a person in a subway causes much more "terror" than a little Cessna. Talk to your buddies that fly F16s and F18s to see how much ordinance they would need to drop, very precisely, to cause serious damage to the US government.

Also, keep in mind that more people have been killed in car crashes this year alone than the sum total of all terrorism ever.
 
My biggest beef with it is the illusion of security that it provides. Only the most uninformed voter will be delluded into thinking these measures help.

It's a little bit like banning guns to promote safety...those of us who are law-abiding will respect rules regarding gun registration, concealed carry permits, training, keeping them locked up where our kids can't get to them, observing safety precautions, etc.

Then again, those of us who are law-abiding are not going to commit crimes with our guns...murder is a much more serious offense than illegal gun ownership. So if a guy is willing to rob a liquor store and kill the owner, a rule about where and how he can buy a handgun will do little to deter him. It will, however, inconvenience those of who hunt, shoot at the target range, plink tins cans, want to defend our homes, etc.

Same thing with this ADIZ nonsense...it won't do squat to stop a terrorist, but it will be a perpetual inconvenience to the rest of us.
 
The real question that no one is asking:

If a terrorist is going to go through all the trouble of spending months learning to fly, gathering up explosives, wiring it all up, planning out the attack and
making the desicion to kill himself, why would he suddenly get lazy and not spend the extra 10 minutes it takes to file a flight plan? Like, duh?

I hesitated to mention this in my letter for fear that their solution would be to make it a federal offense to lie on a flight plan. That'll stop those rascally terrorists!


edit: I guess my point here is while the "only law abiding citizens follow the law" argument somewhat applies, what REALLY makes this stupid is the only ADIZ violations are going to come from inadvertantly flying into it. Anyone looking to do real damage will most definately be on a flight plan and be perfectly legal until they make their move.
 
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Uninformed Position

cobra said:
Playing the devil's advocate for a moment... I sorta see both sides of the problem here.

A large/fast GA plane (RV10) would be an easy target for a terrorist- it would be easy to steal one (no real security at GA airports) and then load it with explosives (even a dirty bomb), or use it to spread biological/chemical contaminants.

The only real downside is that most small planes are not designed to haul a lot of weight like a cargo plane, but could still do a lot of damage with explosives + full fuel tanks. :eek:
Click to expand...


I work and drive around DC every day. A van can carry quite a bit more fire power than a small plane and park right in front of many large buildings. The subway system here is also very vulnerable. It doesn't take a geneous to file an ADIZ flight plan and take an aircraft to the FRZ.

A big fight earlier this year was between the District and the railroads because they continue to rail hazardeous waste through DC. DC lost. So much for security.

Maybe you have no security at your GA airport but most in the DC area do.

Keep in mind that we are not talking about the FRZ (Flight Restricted Zone) that surrounds DC, but the 30nm radius around the Bravo airspace of IAD, DCA, and BWI. I encourage those of you that have not looked on a map of the area to see how much that airspace covers. The FRZ is protected by missle batteries so I doubt that an RV-10 or even a faster Lancair would be able to outrun a missle.

EVERY GENERAL AVIATION PILOT should support the GA community and fight the NPRM for making the Washington DC ADIZ permanent.

Those of you who do not care about this should think twice. It is pilots like you that usually get escorted down when entering the ADIZ for not following the rules. If you don't think this will happen in your area, think about it in more detail. It only takes this precedent to give the green light to other cities making a case to have an ADIZ over them. Chicago, NYC, Boston, Phily, Houston, Dallas, LA, San Diego, San Francisco, etc. How many of you live close to a large city and or a Bravo airport?

For no viable reason, the TSA decided yesterday to close down Potomac Airfield that is one of the DC-3. Many aircraft will be trapped there.

It is estimated that at my airport, Montgomery Airpark (KGAI) that the ADIZ has cost 70 jobs (from AOPA economic impact study). These include an avionics shop and a flight school. Although you still can't get a hanger here, there are fewer planes parked on the ramps. It is not unusual to wait on the phone for 15 minutes to file a flight plan. It is not unusual to call Clearance Delivery 5 times before they can respond to you. Twice I've been asked to exit the ADIZ after entering it because the ATC radar coverage is so poor they lost my transponder signal. (They do not share DOD's radar) You must see the field before you can change frequencies to advisory. During the summer haze here (you guys out West probably don't know what that is) you may be only 4nm from the airport and entering a very heavily congested area. How safe is that? One controller may be working 50 or more planes at a time. The frequency is so congested that it's hard to get your message out then get a response (2 way comm is required).

This out of sight out of mind attitude will take away our freedoms.

Now that the comment period has been extended, I expect that quite a bit more than 18,000 pilots will be commenting, be one of them.

Very simple guys and gals: If you don't help fight this then the terrorists win.
Let's go Vans Airforce....fight for our freedom. :mad:

Mike R.
RV-7A
Fuselage
N174MR (reserved)
 
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