Second time TFR bust

Dave Siciliano

Dave Siciliano

Final Approach
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Display name:
Dave Siciliano
Have y'all seen this?

​

Sat, 04 Feb '06
Pilot Says He Has Violated Crawford TFR Before

Two F-16s intercepted a small airplane that got a little too close to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX Friday night. The fighters guided the errant aircraft to nearby Waco Regional Airport, where the pilot made an uneventful landing.
Waco's KCEN-TV reports the pilot of the Cessna 172 was flying from the Dallas suburb of Mesquite to Georgetown, TX. The unidentified pilot told investigators his GPS wasn't working, and that he was unaware the TFR was active.
Perhaps most disturbing... is the pilot also said he has violated Crawford airspace once before
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Have y'all seen this?



Sat, 04 Feb '06
Pilot Says He Has Violated Crawford TFR Before

Perhaps most disturbing... is the pilot also said he has violated Crawford airspace once before
Click to expand...
Yes, Dave. I saw your post on the Red Board. Thanks for the x-post. The referenced pilot has thrown his second shovelful of dirt into the grave of General Aviation. Last week, AOPA even posted an electronic notice to pilots in central Texas of the TFR. There is no excuse he can present that will ameliorate his aviation error. I'm just shaking my head.

Jim
 
I'll repeat the comments that got me royally reamed out by a few malcontents over on the red board: We have to improve the training and currency process. There should be some kind of a sliding scale of required training time each year: folks who fly more will get less recurrent training than the folks that fly a lot (theory being, folks that fly a lot keep up on the basic plane handling, ATC procedure, and similar skills). The Wings program is a great program, but it allows pilots to skip training on some critical skills, such as TFR avoidance.

If we don't find a way to fix the problem, the result will be further restrictions and lockdown of GA. If the violations continue, it merely proves that the restrictions were necessary.

This appears to be poor planning, not inadvertance.
 
Repeated violations of a law are because of a contrary attitude of the offender. He doesn't agree with the law so he sees any punishment arising from the viloation as being unjust and would further tend to rationalize down any the consequences. One possible rationalization would be that no one was harmed by the vilolation, therefore the penalty is unjust and oppressive because it is not commensurate to the offense.

This is exactly what the 'legalize marijuana' crowd espouses.

In either case, the violater holds a limited understanding of the term "harm".

Then again, perhaps the pilot is a fervent democrat who thinks he's thumbing his nose at the President. His comment that his GPS was not working is simply a bad excuse with the intent to avoid responsibilty which will lead to him suffering the consequences.

Do drunk drivers make all drivers look bad? Do rampaging school kids with guns make all hunters look bad? Does an errant bus driver who hits a bridge make all bus drivers look bad? Why would one assine pilot make all pilots look bad? Unfortunately, the answer is that one rotten apple does indeed ruin the barrel.

If we do not police from within we will be policed from without. I too favor an increased recurrent instruction regime and a hellacious increase in fines and penalties.
 
It is not difficult to avoid the TFR area with VORs. It is not difficult (on a day like today) to do it with a sectional and eyeballs.

This thing has been well-publicized. This pilot left from Mesquite, which was under TFR Friday, and the President nearly always goes to Crawford after Dallas events. The briefers at FSS (who have continued to provide what I consider stellar service, thankee very much) are very persistent in making sure anyone getting a VFR briefing is well-aware of P49 (and that's after you hear the VERY EMPHATIC recording about it in the initial answering message.

No excuse. None.
 
Adam Pirkle said:
Definitely not hard to avoid it without a GPS... I flew from Addison to Austin that Friday with no trouble, and I'm still a student pilot!

By the way Spike, I'm the guy who was coming back in the Cherokee on Saturday... talked to you briefly when you were loading up in 93J.
Click to expand...

...all the best are found here...

...Hope I was polite!
 
Might I add to this thread that a couple guys that have been busted in the ADIZ have reported transponder issues.

On the Garmin 530/430, they have reported that if one enters three digits and hesitates before entering the fourth digit, the unit can squawk 1200 even though it may appear to have a different code. One guy claims Garmin is looking into a software fix for this.

Another guy claimed his transponder was set to a squat switch; went on when he lifted off and turned off on touch down. Another said his was like the Garmin units recording flight time; didn't come on until the plane was going about 30 knots and shut off at that time. Not good in the ADIZ.

Another guy claimed he was busted because his transponder was behind the yoke and he bumped the code when reaching for something.

Guess my point is there are a lot of excuses for not squawking correctly; some of which led to busts. So, be careful out there, 'specially if this could happen in your plane.

Dave
 
Dave,

Mine is wired to the squat switch. I've never had a problem in the ADIZ.

When I remember, I manually squawk altitude in the ADIZ before taxi, but I've never had an issue with the squat switch.

I wish they could read Mode S, then it would be a non-issue.

YMMV

bill
 
One plane I use has this annoying defect of suddenly losing all the digits and squawking 1200. Very annoying when center calls you on it. I have learned to dial the code into the standby txpdr so I at least don't forget what it should be, and sometimes can beat atc to the punch by flipflopping. The service center says they can't fix it, it is a known issue (?!??) I think I would refuse to fly it into this adiz like that, as it is I am pretty torqued about it.
 
wsuffa said:
Dave,

Mine is wired to the squat switch. I've never had a problem in the ADIZ.

When I remember, I manually squawk altitude in the ADIZ before taxi, but I've never had an issue with the squat switch.

I wish they could read Mode S, then it would be a non-issue.

YMMV

bill
Click to expand...

Bill:

Not saying it is, but some folks don't know how theirs works. The only issue that could arise with you is if someone wanted it on while you taxied. Is that happening anywhere? I'm told, at some places they want it on during taxi, but I've never experienced it, and, I'm just reporting rumors--which I shouldn't do.

But these other issues can create ADIZ problems and have for some Bo pilots. Steve Oxyman reached over and automatically turned the transponder to 1200 as he normally does when Center cleared him to land at an uncontrolled airport--hard lesson.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Bill:

Not saying it is, but some folks don't know how theirs works. The only issue that could arise with you is if someone wanted it on while you taxied. Is that happening anywhere? I'm told, at some places they want it on during taxi, but I've never experienced it, and, I'm just reporting rumors--which I shouldn't do.

But these other issues can create ADIZ problems and have for some Bo pilots. Steve Oxyman reached over and automatically turned the transponder to 1200 as he normally does when Center cleared him to land at an uncontrolled airport--hard lesson.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree with you on the other problems. They get so ingrained... and the auto switch back to 1200 IS a problem. I also understand that some folks have been gigged when they are given a squawk with a last digit of 'zero', but they forget to type in the last digit (or it doesn't take). In that case, it'll look like the correct code but still be squawking 1200.

I've only been asked to squawk on the ground at one place, don't recall where but I don't think it was in the ADIZ. May have been a Class B with the anti-incursion radar. In that case, you can push the "alt" button on the Garmin and it will reply regardless of the squat switch.
 
One plane i have flow a lot in had a "VFR" button right next to the "Ident" button. The transponder was all the way on the co-pilots side. I prolly hit the wrong button 25% of the time.

So if you hit 1200 for 30 seconds in the ADIZ, you are busted?? What a bunch of BS.
 
If you squawk 1200 for any length of time they will bust you. And, since they were tracking you with your correct transponder code, they know who you are. They have a special group of people at the ADIZ ATC facilities whose sole job is to watch for 1200 squawks. Steve
 
Eamon said:
One plane i have flow a lot in had a "VFR" button right next to the "Ident" button. The transponder was all the way on the co-pilots side. I prolly hit the wrong button 25% of the time.

So if you hit 1200 for 30 seconds in the ADIZ, you are busted?? What a bunch of BS.
Click to expand...

Yes, Eamon. That's exactly what happened to Steve. Hit 1200; then, caught the mistake and corrected. Too late. He's had a real rough time with it.

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Yes, Eamon. That's exactly what happened to Steve. Hit 1200; then, caught the mistake and corrected. Too late. He's had a real rough time with it.

Dave
Click to expand...

Golly, with that much dedicated scrutiny WRT 1200 codes I'd really feel a lot safer living in DC.:mad:
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Not saying it is, but some folks don't know how theirs works. The only issue that could arise with you is if someone wanted it on while you taxied. Is that happening anywhere? I'm told, at some places they want it on during taxi, but I've never experienced it, and, I'm just reporting rumors--which I shouldn't do.
Click to expand...

Dave,

KMKE wants the transponder on on the ground. They say so in the ATIS as a reminder. Presumably it's for a runway incursion avoidance system, though I don't know which system they have installed there.

Not that I'll have to worry about that, I'm not going back there after I was charged $44 in fees to park there for about four hours! :mad:

Dave Siciliano said:
On the Garmin 530/430, they have reported that if one enters three digits and hesitates before entering the fourth digit, the unit can squawk 1200 even though it may appear to have a different code.

Another guy claimed his transponder was set to a squat switch; went on when he lifted off and turned off on touch down. Another said his was like the Garmin units recording flight time; didn't come on until the plane was going about 30 knots and shut off at that time. Not good in the ADIZ.
Click to expand...

I assume you mean 327/330, not 530/430 ;-)

The default behavior for the Garmin GTX 327, GTX 330, and G1000 is to automatically squawk ALT upon reaching 30 knots. This can be overridden by pressing the "ALT" button just like any other transponder. (G1000: Press "XPDR" soft key first.)
 
Dave Siciliano said:
Bill:

Not saying it is, but some folks don't know how theirs works. The only issue that could arise with you is if someone wanted it on while you taxied. Is that happening anywhere? I'm told, at some places they want it on during taxi, but I've never experienced it, and, I'm just reporting rumors--which I shouldn't do.

But these other issues can create ADIZ problems and have for some Bo pilots. Steve Oxyman reached over and automatically turned the transponder to 1200 as he normally does when Center cleared him to land at an uncontrolled airport--hard lesson.
Click to expand...

Down here there are places you HAVE to turn off on the ground.
 
On aircraft equipped with Garmin XPDR and GPS, the transponder automatically starts to squawking alt wehn (as noted above) GS exceeds 30kts, and automatically goes to standby when you stop after landing (under 30kts? Not sure).

Hobby (HOU) also specifically requests pilots squawk while taxiing.
 
SCCutler said:
On aircraft equipped with Garmin XPDR and GPS, the transponder automatically starts to squawking alt wehn (as noted above) GS exceeds 30kts, and automatically goes to standby when you stop after landing (under 30kts? Not sure).

Hobby (HOU) also specifically requests pilots squawk while taxiing.
Click to expand...

I figured that out the other day. After takeoff I realised I forgot to turn the transponder to ALT, and looked down and it was on ALT. I thought hmm, maybe I did turn it on.

After landing and taxing back I thought "crap I forgot to turn it off" and looked down, and it was on standby.
 
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