Make "them" pay

[Lateral-G]

Attitude

The orientation of the three major axes of an aircraft (longitudinal, lateral, and vertical) with respect to a fixed reference such as the horizon, the relative wind, or direction of flight. Usually refers to the relationship between the nose of the airplane and the horizon, such as the nose is pointing “above” or “below” the horizon.




Attitude



One's disposition, opinion, mental set.


Tired Of Presidential TFRs? ( Temporary Flight Restriction ) Send Them The Bill...

If You Can't Fight City Hall (Or The White House), Bill Them


Jim Gray has submitted a bill to the White House and the Democratic National Committee in the amount of $2565 dollars, representing the business which has been lost at his Oakland Flyers flight school during a campaign fund-raising visit by President Obama.

The visit Thursday night brought a TFR to the Bay area of California from 1700 till 1000 Friday, which meant Gray's fleet sat parked, students had to have their lessons canceled, and both the flight school and the instructors lost money.

Gray comments, "If it was for something related to global affairs, I'd have no problem with it. But if it's just for fund raising, kind of do it on somebody else's dime."


article


He shared his letter on ABC-7 TV. It says, in part, "In keeping with the spirit of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we feel that this loss of revenue should not go unmitigated. We appreciate your timely acknowledgment and payment."

 

[tigisfat]

Attitude

The orientation of the three major axes of an aircraft (longitudinal, lateral, and vertical) with respect to a fixed reference such as the horizon, the relative wind, or direction of flight. Usually refers to the relationship between the nose of the airplane and the horizon, such as the nose is pointing “above” or “below” the horizon.




Attitude



One's disposition, opinion, mental set.


Tired Of Presidential TFRs? ( Temporary Flight Restriction ) Send Them The Bill...

If You Can't Fight City Hall (Or The White House), Bill Them


Jim Gray has submitted a bill to the White House and the Democratic National Committee in the amount of $2565 dollars, representing the business which has been lost at his Oakland Flyers flight school during a campaign fund-raising visit by President Obama.

The visit Thursday night brought a TFR to the Bay area of California from 1700 till 1000 Friday, which meant Gray's fleet sat parked, students had to have their lessons canceled, and both the flight school and the instructors lost money.

Gray comments, "If it was for something related to global affairs, I'd have no problem with it. But if it's just for fund raising, kind of do it on somebody else's dime."


article


He shared his letter on ABC-7 TV. It says, in part, "In keeping with the spirit of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we feel that this loss of revenue should not go unmitigated. We appreciate your timely acknowledgment and payment."

That's pretty funny, and yet unlikely to get paid. Not that I'm an Obama fan, but if he was he wouldn't be upset.

 

[Ken Stallings]

You know, there is a very serious and meritable concept behind this letter.

I think it is time to suspend the Presidential TFR's entirely, and abolish the special one around Washington DC. The mechanisms have been in place now for nearly 10 years and it is hurting too many legitimate business interests.

It's also completely arbitrary. The reality is if you want to murder a group of people with a bomb, load up a Ryder rental truck and you can take down a high rise office building!

With a general aviation aircraft, you can smash into one office, kill one person in that office, and have the building running again in less than a month.

As long as the airlines keep their security tight, and frankly, I don't think what happened on 9-11 will ever happen that way again, then there's really no justifiable threat to keep this restriction in place.

Ken

 

[tigisfat]

As long as the president is travelling, it will be impossible to completely protect him.

 

[Skittles]

You know, there is a very serious and meritable concept behind this letter.

I think it is time to suspend the Presidential TFR's entirely, and abolish the special one around Washington DC. The mechanisms have been in place now for nearly 10 years and it is hurting too many legitimate business interests.

It's also completely arbitrary. The reality is if you want to murder a group of people with a bomb, load up a Ryder rental truck and you can take down a high rise office building!

With a general aviation aircraft, you can smash into one office, kill one person in that office, and have the building running again in less than a month.

As long as the airlines keep their security tight, and frankly, I don't think what happened on 9-11 will ever happen that way again, then there's really no justifiable threat to keep this restriction in place.

Ken

It's the president - which van is going to get near him full of explosives?

We're not talking about a plane full of civilians, we're talking about the most powerful man in the world.

Perhaps you have misread the article? Airline security doesn't have the slightest thing to do with it! Any Tom, Dick or Harry with a PPL can take a quick checkride in a Caravan and get it in the air. Fill said caravan with something nasty and slam it into the side of Air Force One (at certain points in the flight of course) - what's going to stop you?

The TFR is the ONLY thing protecting the president. Any aircraft violating the airspace and they're either ordered to leave or intercepted.

Without the TDR, what are you going to do about said caravan who's been in the circuit for 10 minutes?

 

[tigisfat]

Perhaps you have misread the article? Airline security doesn't have the slightest thing to do with it! Any Tom, Dick or Harry with a PPL can take a quick checkride in a Caravan and get it in the air.

I believe you're incorrect here. A caravan requires a type rating. They don't have them available for rent anywhere I can think of, either.

Fill said caravan with something nasty and slam it into the side of Air Force One (at certain points in the flight of course) - what's going to stop you?

Let's be realistic and say you're going to attempt it in a Cessna 172, which anyone with a license can check out in and rent. I don't think I've ever flown as fast as a 747's Vref in a Cessna 172. Not even in a dive. You'd be hard pressed to maneuver your way into ramming a 747 with a Cessna 172. Sure, you could argue that someone will take one headon while it's on final, but for that matter, a TFR wouldn't stop that if someone really wanted to. They would know visually and on radar that there was still an aircraft in the air and not put the 747 in a position where it would be near it.

Without the TDR, what are you going to do about said caravan who's been in the circuit for 10 minutes?

Tell him to land or vacate the area. If he doesn't, you don't bring the 747 in.

 

[Ken Stallings]

It's the president - which van is going to get near him full of explosives?

We're not talking about a plane full of civilians, we're talking about the most powerful man in the world.

Perhaps you have misread the article? Airline security doesn't have the slightest thing to do with it! Any Tom, Dick or Harry with a PPL can take a quick checkride in a Caravan and get it in the air. Fill said caravan with something nasty and slam it into the side of Air Force One (at certain points in the flight of course) - what's going to stop you?

The TFR is the ONLY thing protecting the president. Any aircraft violating the airspace and they're either ordered to leave or intercepted.

Without the TDR, what are you going to do about said caravan who's been in the circuit for 10 minutes?

Remotely true IF the suicide pilot knows the exact itinerary of the President. However, the part about a planned mid-air is totally off the charts inplausible. Anyone with access to a Caravan has already been checked out ten times more than average people with access to a Ryder rental truck.

You ignore a simple fact also. Someone who intends to murder the President is already a criminal. Do you really think he cares the slightest about the TFR?

All it does is allow the Secret Service perhaps a few more minutes, perhaps. However, someone could still take off from a remote airport (or even a dirt strip), turn off his transponder, fly low to the ground, and Secret Service would not get any warning at all.

Again, the issue is knowing the President's exact itinerary, and I certainly hope the Secret Service never lets that vital information be known ahead of time.

If the Secret Service does see an aircraft flying overhead it will do the same thing for a suspicious automobile.

The sad reality is that if someone is willing to kill himself to kill our President, then there's little that can be done to stop him. I'd be far more concerned about a ground vehicle loaded with explosives. And the best way to stop a suicide pilot is to have Secret Service agents at all the local airports watching what is going on. You'd be surprised how few GA aircraft fly on a daily basis. I'm sure the USSS guys would agree that staking out the airports would be the easier duties.

Ken

 

[Skittles]

Of course the TFR doesn't guarantee that no-one will try, or that they would be completely unable to, but the fact that it exists gives everyone involved an extra few minutes to take action.

Movement on the apron? Get the hell out of there. Blip on the radar? Get the hell out of there etc etc.

The argument that 'if someone really wants to kill him then there's not a lot to stop him' is a bit off. If that were true the president would get the bus about town. The TFR establishes a safe area around the aircraft which would be completely lost if the TFR was revoked. Not to mention the aircraft which the president uses both have radar themselves, so they self establish the safety area.

As for the president's itinery - it's plastered all over the news a lot of the time!

 

[tigisfat]

Movement on the apron? Get the hell out of there.

have any of you guys been lucky enough to be part of a 'ramp freeze' at Andrews? The people who're stationed there don't think it's funny when six TDY aircrew members and crew chiefs strike a pose for the entire duration of the ramp freeze. :mixedsmi:

 

[Ken Stallings]

Of course the TFR doesn't guarantee that no-one will try, or that they would be completely unable to, but the fact that it exists gives everyone involved an extra few minutes to take action.

Movement on the apron? Get the hell out of there. Blip on the radar? Get the hell out of there etc etc.

The argument that 'if someone really wants to kill him then there's not a lot to stop him' is a bit off. If that were true the president would get the bus about town. The TFR establishes a safe area around the aircraft which would be completely lost if the TFR was revoked. Not to mention the aircraft which the president uses both have radar themselves, so they self establish the safety area.

As for the president's itinery - it's plastered all over the news a lot of the time!

OK, for the sake of that extra minute of time, are you willing to support a highway and road freeze?

I can make the same arguments in favor of locking down all road traffic. However, we know the reason that has not happened. It is because the benefit is not sufficient to justify the costs to society.

The point is that the same costs have happened to the general aviation industry. But I guess since most people don't think they have a dog in that fight they don't care. But, they should!

When you assist in putting thousands of people out of work and cost the nation billions of dollars in business, then the costs are signficant and measurable. And I do not believe that giving the President at best another minute or two justifies the huge costs this nation has already paid.

In the Washington DC area alone, there were many avionics and powerplant repair centers put out of business by the gargantuan special ADIZ restrictions in place there.

Ken

 

[Ken Stallings]

And in addition to considering the trivial benefits in time (at best theretical) again I must emphasize the nature of the risk that GA aircraft pose compared to widely available trucks and cars.

A Ryder rental truck loaded with fertilizer can bring down the Alfred Murer Federal building in OKC.

A Cessna Skyhawk or Piper Archer can (even when optimized with additional fuel and explosives onboard as in that recent attack on the IRS office in Houston) can take out one office room and if a person is in that room, can kill him. All onboard the aircraft will certainly die. The building will suffer some fire damage, but be operational again in a month or less.

Logically, if you have the same benefit in security, with magnitude less risk under the worst possible circumstance, then you don't ban that. Instead, you go with the one with the same benefit with the vastly larger threat scope. That would be ground transportation.

I submit again that the sole reason that hasn't happened is the sheer volume of pure hell the public would unleash against the government had any effort been made to ban cars and trucks in the way GA aircraft have been banned by TFR's and special ADIZ's.

Before you support continuing the current bans, I really think all should think objectively on what I have written here and ask yourself if you'd give up your cars? I hope it doesn't come down to a callous consideration wherre people say, "Doesn't hurt me so I don't give a damn -- stay grounded!" Or else, some day in the future you may find yourself in a minority population, be singled out by government for unique restrictions, and wonder why so few care!

Remember, what if Piglet were working in DC and lost his job because of that ADIZ? Would you care then?

Ken

 

[TeaSea]

The TFR is an overused and completely ineffective anachronism that really needs to be re-looked. It is a construct designed the protect those charged with the President's security from being accused of not taking all measures possible to ensure the President's safety in an incident. In other words, it exists to "cover their ass's".

In reality it does little but inform would-be assassins where the President will be, and when he will be there.

The most likely threat to Air Force one is from a barrage of MANPADS (sufrace to air missle). That would have to be a well-coordinated and expensive attack executed by professionals (Air Force One is tricked out with all the latest SAM protections and a random pot shot is not going to be much of a threat) and not very likely so succeed. Ramming Air Force One is just about a complete impossibility. That being said, the real threat to Air Force One is the same threat that all aircraft face -- Weather. I don't think mother nature gives a hoot for TFR's, so we're not really doing much to protect against that are we?

And don't even get me going about the restrictions around the D.C. area. If the Federal Government were really serious about protecting Capital Hill....they'd shut down Reagan International, which has really difficult approaches and lies on a swamp to begin with (I work with a ex F-16 driver who's flown that route in a 737 multiple times, once in complete IFR minimums -- an act he stated he would never, ever repeat). That will never happen of course, because that's basically the private airport for Congress.

My little Piper Archer would take well over an hour to enter one side of the restricted space and exit the other. I don't think I could build up enough thrust to hurt anything. I'd bounce off the Pentagon, probably take out a few cherry trees if I wanted...and seriously ruin some pigeons day...but don't worry, that restriction keeps from doing those things.

 

[yank51]

Did we really have this much "discussion' or concern about TFR's during the last administration's 8 years in office? OR, have people just gotten a bit more "anal" about who the TFR is for?? Really now guys, isn't there something else that might be more worth your time and effort than how much interference our current leader might be causing due to TFRs...??? Just my .02....

 

[Panther_99FS]

There's a lot of mixers in here for a "closed thread" recipe....

 

[Ken Stallings]

Did we really have this much "discussion' or concern about TFR's during the last administration's 8 years in office? OR, have people just gotten a bit more "anal" about who the TFR is for?? Really now guys, isn't there something else that might be more worth your time and effort than how much interference our current leader might be causing due to TFRs...??? Just my .02....

You certainly didn't get that impression from my comments! I've been very consistent on this issue. Nor, based upon the comments made in this thread, can any such inference be logically drawn!

Frankly, to pull that comparison seems a triffle bit bizzare to me.

Ken

 

[jmig]

Did we really have this much "discussion' or concern about TFR's during the last administration's 8 years in office? OR, have people just gotten a bit more "anal" about who the TFR is for?? Really now guys, isn't there something else that might be more worth your time and effort than how much interference our current leader might be causing due to TFRs...??? Just my .02....

I thought they sucked when Bush was President, too.

As Panther warned, stay away from the politics or I will have to either edit posts or close the entire thread, neither of which I want to do.

 

[yank51]

You certainly didn't get that impression from my comments! I've been very consistent on this issue. Nor, based upon the comments made in this thread, can any such inference be logically drawn!

Frankly, to pull that comparison seems a triffle bit bizzare to me.

Ken

My apologies Ken, and to ALL who have posted on this particular thread. My comments were aimed at whom ever thought up the post to try and charge "them" for the inconvenience of the TFRs. If someone is to pay, who do you suppose would be paying this? why us, the American taxpayers of course. I was only alluding to the fact that this is about the 2nd or 3rd one of these "complaints" I've seen here in the last several months (while they ARE aviation related, granted) relating to TFRs, and I frankly don't remember any discussions in the more distant past about them is all. Again, my apologies to all of you here who posted, as I realize that there were no politics by the OP, or in anyone's comments (except, of course, mine....)

 

[TeaSea]

My apologies Ken, and to ALL who have posted on this particular thread. My comments were aimed at whom ever thought up the post to try and charge "them" for the inconvenience of the TFRs. If someone is to pay, who do you suppose would be paying this? why us, the American taxpayers of course. I was only alluding to the fact that this is about the 2nd or 3rd one of these "complaints" I've seen here in the last several months (while they ARE aviation related, granted) relating to TFRs, and I frankly don't remember any discussions in the more distant past about them is all. Again, my apologies to all of you here who posted, as I realize that there were no politics by the OP, or in anyone's comments (except, of course, mine....)

You are quite right, of course...the "them" is "us".

This isn't really a political issue at all, and doesn't have much to do with the president himself. People tend to focus on the presidents, but they didn't set up this system, and as odd as it sounds don't have much input into how these things are carried out. However, the President does head up the executive branch, which executes and presides over the current arrangements so you are going to see angst expressed towards the president, whether it's justified or not.

I will say the fact that President Obama travels a lot, and tends to go to areas where the impact is quite severe has brought this matter to the forefront most recently. I give you Hawaii -- where half the state becomes restricted air space, during the Christmas vacation period; Chicago -- which impacts most transit through the mid-west; and New York, where both he and the vice president unfortunately managed to impact the state at differing times on the same day. President Bush did not travel as much, and in his time away from the White House tended towards his property in rural Texas, where the impact was not significant.

If President Obama is receiving more criticism over this issue it is due to the locations and the frequency of his travel.

In any case, the whole system needs a serious re-look. The TFRs were meant as TEMPORARY restrictions (hence the "T" int the TFR designation), however more of these are being imposed for longer periods of time, and when the President chooses to sit somewhere a while, more and more people are impacted. Individual pilots can often adjust their plans, however the businesses that cater to them are physically stuck, and are impacted quite severely at times. If the Government took your property through condemnation proceedings and eminent domain practices they would pay....I'm not so sure this isn't an equivalent situation. Perhaps we shall see a court decide this at some point in the future.