I’m sorry. I tried, but I can’t quite tease out what you’re trying to convey. Do you agree with the current state of security theatre? Do you think we should just leave well enough alone? That the security need actually justifies the current system?
I’m in total agreement that we shouldn’t contract this issue out to the advocacy groups, and the only way we’re going to get any movement on this is by either contacting our representatives personally, or by directly attacking the TFR system itself via court action regarding the overreach and (my opinion) unconstitutional implementation. The only tangentially pertinent lawsuit that I’ve been able to find was one filed by Infowars over flight restrictions over a border TFR. Everyone else seems to either agree with the TFRs or they aren’t willing to actively oppose them, economic and liberty interests be damned.
I am sorry for the lack of clarity. My personal opinion on the current state of security theater is entirely negative, yet - as relevant as anyone elses.
Of course I have realized and accepted that the people who decide these things are above my paygrade/ outside my level of influence. I am a pro GA/BA person with two decades of trying to unite people and with lots of aviation advocacy work behind me.
Thats called activism today… without the 200K/ Year salary.
One of the other realisms is, that we have had two attempts on currently sitting president and I am willing to bet, eyes and ears are closed to common sense/ adjustments or easements. There is no collective bargaining, no feedback is being sought and advocacy groups with lobbying duties in Washington probably have their hands full, trying to get these criminals to pay attention to anything.
Hence: Read these NOTAMs… and expect nothing but brute power and control excercises on fairly innocent pilots, in case someone looses their cool…
I live in the PNW and the most common TFR’s around here are for fire fighting; needed and appreciated. I’ve often thought that most of the other TRF’s , especially for VIP travel, are a bit of a joke in terms of threat mitigation. I remember a story some years ago when a New York Yankees pitcher (?Corey Liddell) crashed into a New York apartment building in a Cirrus killing himself and a passenger; the apartment building sustained a scorch mark.
Its pretty safe to assume that a government apparatus which does not hesitate to send the military to Los Angeles, won’t even blink about ordering any TFR violating aircraft shot down. All else would be naive. We do not enjoy a very stable or levelheaded adminsitration.
Remember the glider pilot who got too close to a nuclear powerplant and found himself bunkered and interrogated like a terrorist… the tail has always wagged with the dog in these regards.
Maybe one of the AOPA operatives frequenting this website will remember and link to this archived and forgotten content.
If you can’t do what it takes to stay out of published TFR’s (whatever you think about the reasons behind it) you have no business being PIC of an aircraft. Work to change the rules you don’t like, but until the rules change, play by them or stay out of the game. Violators only make all us GA pilots look like undisciplined idiots whose wings the public will want clipped, and at the voting booth, there’s a lot more of the public than there are of us.
So i doubt very much of NORAD would order fighters to shoot down a TFR violator around a wildfire (though perhaps they should..) but as others have said, the only real risk to our fearless leader from other aircraft is when he is in the air, and being followed by F-16’s or better. On the ground, with notice to all, it would be much easier to use a sniper or non-descript van packed with explosives or a self-directed (jam-proof..) drone to take him out than to fly a 172 into him on the golf course or at dinner in Florida. And a determined GA assassin would use something faster than a 172 with ADS-B and Transponder off, bringing into question the realistic response time of the orbiting jets. Point is that the 30 mile zone when someone is golfing is a waste, an economic hardship, and of no particular security value.
Debate all you want, but do NOT denigrate the risks to the pilot involved, the intercepting pilots (see this accident) or anyone on the ground if the airplane has to be splashed. And please take my main point – for our own good, we need to do all we can to convince every GA pilot out there of the importance of doing all we can to avoid busting TFR’s, and trivializing the reasons for those TFR’s doesn’t help achieve that goal. With all the tools we have, there’s simply no excuse for these busts, and (God help me for agreeing with the politicians saying this) barring a true emergency, anyone who does deserves to be grounded for incompetence.
Perhaps so, but pilot convenience is not a consideration. Those TFR radii are based on comprehensive flight testing involving all sorts of threat aircraft and the various anti-aircraft defense systems.
Low level, NOE, very fast with pilot looking up at the buildings giving him cover from the F-16 which may have some issues maintaining visual on target darting about with human subjects on the road to the target. Lack of imagination displayed here. Oh, disregard, just the plot for a fiction action movie starring the fellow hanging from the landing gear strut in his latest movie.
TFRs are like gun free zones, anybody with a gun can walk in and shoot and anybody with a plane can fly in and Kamikazi the place if he wants to. Worse than VIP TFRs are the stupid a$$ baseball, basketball, and football TFRs. You can’t stop a crazy with a plane or a gun. I say do away with all TFRs period. Here is one more,George Bush has a Prohibited Area P49 10 miles west of Waco, Tx. over his ranch.
The real issue, GA wanted to be part of the solution after 9/11 and got screwed in the process
Whether it be an over reaching TFR, the DC SFRA or the DC FRZ, enough is enough. We pay taxes, aviation tax (via fuel taxes) and should have reasonable use of the airspace.
Whether it’s airports unusable during a TFR, or the normal reroute around the DC class B even when IFR, we (the aviation community) gets to pay for this security theater. And don’t get me going about DCA. Prior to 9/11, though pricy (thank you Signature), I routinely operated everything from a Navajo to a Hawker in there. How I (we) became a security threat? Of course the airlines loved it (more slots!!!).
Since 9/11 our lawmakers and capital have become more insular, forgetting the public they were there to serve.
8 busts in one weekend just shows how ineffective the TFR’s really are. And some of the comments on this thread show why the government can pick on GA and get away with it. I’m surprised someone hasn’t figured out how to use a drone to penetrate a TFR yet. The war in Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran sure demonstrates how useful they are, and how difficult they are to stop. Just think, the Air Force and Navy couldn’t stop a balloon launched by China that ended up crossing the US using all the expensive tech and even cannon fire in an attempt to bring it down. Until GA pilots and plane owners unite with one voice nothing will change with these worthless TFR’s!
Ron, I’ll agree to a point. The issue is that what was supposed to be reasonable security precautions have gotten out of hand. You and I have experienced it first hand whether it be Biden closing down everything around ILG or Trump closing everything around Bedminster.
The simple fact that I can’t even file an IFR through the SFRA on a published airway, speaks volumes. There is no reasonableness any more
