Would you fly over a bridge with towers 440 feet tall under a 1200 foot bravo shelf?

Salty

Salty

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Salty
Thinking about a sight seeing flight around the sunshine skyway bridge. If they don’t let you into the bravo, would you fly over it at 1000 feet, or stay a few thousand feet clear and just fly around it?

Just curious what others might do.
 
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The Golden Gate Bridge towers are 750 feet MSL and the roadway is 220 feet MSL at the center of the span. The bottom of the SFO Class B shelf is 3,000 feet over the length of the bridge. I frequently fly over the bridge center span at 1,200 feet while doing the "bay tour."

Westbound%20Toward%20GG%20Bridge%20med_zpsxy7dlyuw.jpg
 
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The corridor flight up the Hudson River in New York is almost the same. You have to cross the Verrazano Narrows bridge while staying under the class B. I’d guess someone does that every few minutes all day long.
 
I would not.
As a general rule I don't really fly that low anyway.
 
Salty said:
Thinking about a sight seeing flight around the sunshine skyway bridge. If they don’t let you into the bravo, would you fly over it at 1000 feet, or stay a few thousand feet clear and just fly around it?

Just curious what others might do.
Click to expand...

I’d do it. Looks like 500’ from any person, vehicle, vessel or structure territory to me.
 
I’d do it, sure. Just be aware that if anything were to go haywire that your options are very limited at a low altitude like that, which I’m sure you’re aware of.
 
Fly over it? Sure, why not. At 1000' you get > 500' clearance.

The real question is do you want to be tooling around at 1000' over the water, not much time to react there. It isn't legally required, but I'd probably at least wear a life preserver.
 
Funny for years as a helicopter pilot anything over 500 ft was unusual...now I am an altitude whore even on short flights...flown under lots of bridges and power lines in rotor wing but never GA...but have no problem going low if I have to...warm water no issue...cold...not so much
 
Sounds like fun if you happen to be flying a floatplane :)
 
Why not? You don't have to fly right over the towers, and probably wouldn't want to to get the most scenic view!
 
I'd rather just call up ATC and get clearance into the bravo and not worry about the shelf but if that option wasn't available and for some reason I needed to go that way sure.
 
That is not an issue.
i fly the city tour from KFRG a few times a year. This includes flying at 500 or less over the water just south of JFK. If I don’t go in the Bravo, It is flying over varerezzano bridge at 1200 feet. Up the Hudson where there is really no emergency landing area except the water.
 
Sully did it....... Once.....
 
This low. Sorry about the sound quality.
I forgot to mention: The towers are 604 ft tall.

 
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Have flown 110 nm across the Gulf Of Mexico to Tampa (and then South just offshore) a number of times. The wife gets all flutters over water. I get all flutters over the mountains. I'll choose a water ditching over a granite cliff with wannabe telephone poles sticking up, any day.
 
Why not? You’re over the bridge for all of a couple seconds. Heck even if the engine decided to take a dump right there you’d be past it before you lost any appreciable altitude.
 
Well, they decided they wanted to go north up to cedar key instead, so it wasn’t an issue. The alternator went out on the crappy rental, so we lost radios on the way back. Good thing we weren’t in the bravo or even in FF, but I ended up having to do 3 NORDO landings and a hand prop before I got the broke POC back to its owners. Good news is the Hobbs doesn’t run when the avionics master isn’t on, so they agreed to only bill us for the time the radios were working. Maybe stumbled on a sleezy way to cheat on rentals...... flip off the avionics while in cruise. Lol
 
Tampa is not going to let you into the bravo,around the bridge. When departing Albert whitard ,they will warn you to stay below the bravo,and away from MAC Dill.
 
The 500 foot rule is it legal guideline, but every now and then somebody flying around off the shore of La Jolla here gets reported. With transponders and ADSB now it is pretty easy to tell whether or not the flight was legal or not, but still a hassle to have to deal with

I've been low a couple times, there's a San Diego Bay tour and air traffic control has you start at 500 feet for the offshore transition through the Bravo air space and typically will put you around 800 feet for most of it. it is a beautiful view, but you're definitely, at least I am, a little on edge being that low since your options become very limited with any type of issue
 
I've flown over this bridge a few times now, the lowest was at 1,500' just inside the Bravo.

Departing and landing at Peter O Knight inside the bay, if I'm taking people sight seeing I'll takeoff and head east away from traffic and away from the Bravo where I can get a feel for how my potentially first-time passengers are doing while listening to approach. Then I'll ask for the VFR corridor from east to west over Tampa Int'l until I hit the coast where I'll head south along the beaches and then up into the bay. If they need me lower than the 3k-ish I prefer, I just stick closer to the actual coast lines rather than in the middle of the bay.

Not only has Tampa never NOT given me clearance into the Bravo around there (sometimes it may take a minute so plan ahead/act accordingly), on one weekend they had control of the MacDill Class D and had me fly through there to approach Peter O for landing. That was a shock to me, but it was direct rather than skirting the bay along the shore at a lower altitude.

I caveat these thoughts with the fact that I'm flying my OWN plane and I know the maintenance history and I'm not in a rental wondering who or what flew it before me. Seeing how your rental seemed to not be in top shape, I'd ask for Bravo clearance at a high enough altitude that you're comfortable, but if Tampa is landing heading north and Sarasota has departures heading north/northeast then I could see Tampa not giving you what you want.
 
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