AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2021 - 68

REFLECTIONS /
GA UNDER SIEGE
GA flight in the TFR,
um ADIZ, er SFRA
BY PETER A. BEDELL
IN THE NOVEMBER 2001 ISSUE of AOPA Pilot, I wrote
about being stranded in Rolla, Missouri, with my
family's Beechcraft Baron while returning from an
AOPA assignment in Wichita, Kansas (see " Where Were
You? Grounded, " November 2001 AOPA Pilot). I was stranded
for more than three days, and upon being cleared to fly again,
my home airport was still off limits because of its proximity to
the nation's capital 20 miles to the southeast.
Being based at the Montgomery County Airpark in
Gaithersburg, Maryland (GAI), felt like the punching bag of government
officials rushing to impose ill-conceived restrictions in
the days following 9/11. Changes in procedures to get in and out
of the airport were common and led to the establishment of a
(permanent) temporary flight restricted area that varied in size
and strictness seemingly at the whim of the U.S. Secret Service
or TSA. Many pilots and aircraft owners moved their airplanes to
airports outside of restricted airspace, drastically cut back on flying,
or simply quit. Traffic at the airport decreased dramatically
and to this day is not as busy as it was in the 1990s.
Following the attacks, we could no longer just take off VFR
and fly. The TFR, which later graduated to an air defense identification
zone (ADIZ), required flight plans to be filed and a
discrete transponder code entered. Taking off with a 1200 code
led to an automatic violation for GA pilots within the ADIZ.
Ironically, when this happened in the airliner I flew out of nearby
Washington Dulles International Airport (also within the ADIZ),
the controller casually said, " check your transponder. "
ATC, now suddenly tasked with tagging and tracking every
GA flight in the area, spun off new frequencies just for the purpose
of checking the required boxes of having a transponder code
and establishing radar and radio contact. This added another
layer of communication complexity in some of the most complex
airspace in the country, taxing the attention of both pilots
and controllers. Flight following and Class B clearances became
hard to come by, reducing safety and convenience as GA traffic
was (and still is) jammed in corridors outside of TFRs and Class B
boundaries. There was even a fatal crash within the ADIZ after a
Piper Malibu mistakenly took off without a code and in the hasty
return to land, the pilot lost control of the airplane.
Intercepts were common and fighter jets or helicopters would
often escort violators to land at GAI, scaring the nearby neighbors
and with each occurrence putting a black eye on GA. The more
pilots ran afoul of the ADIZ, the more our freedom to fly would
be threatened. Edicts and mandates that flew in the face of common
sense (and of our country's founding on individual freedom)
68
AOPA PILOT / September 2021
required us pilots to either police ourselves or be
dogged by ominous government regulations.
The airpark was soon completely surrounded by
a tall fence with security gates. No longer could neighbors
wander out to the airport and watch airport operations with
their kids without an imposing fence in the way. So much for the
friendly local airport. Now it is intimidating. All these years later,
the airspace itself remains intimidating, leading many pilots to
avoid it. Deterrence mission complete?
In February 2009, the ADIZ became a special flight rules area
and made permanent most of the procedures already in place.
The SFRA extends 30 nautical miles from the DCA VOR and a
more restrictive flight restricted zone extends 15 nm from DCA.
Mandatory online training is required for any pilot flying VFR
within 60 nm of the DCA VOR. Although it took many more years
than hoped, the incidences of airspace violations and intercepts
have drastically fallen to rare occurrences. The procedures needed
to fly from my local airport, while still annoying, have become
commonplace to be essentially automatic now. To co-opt a hackneyed
phrase, we've reached a new normal, sadly. Peter A. Bedell
is a captain at a major airline and is co-owner of a Cessna 172 and
Beechcraft Baron.
AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2021
