gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
I was scheduled to fly two kids on an Angel Flight mission from Iowa to Camp Heartland in northern Minnesota last Friday, and of course Bush had selected that day to put in an appearance in my area. In the morning I read the TFR (which was poorly written as usual) and determined that my flight wouldn't be affected since the three "no flight" zones didn't include my airport nor my flight path to the south. The closest one was a 10 NM radius circle centered on the Minneapolis airport and my home base KFCM is 11 NM from KMSP. Then I learned from a briefer that FCM would be included in the TFR even though it was outside the described area. BTW this change was never published in any NOTAM. The scheduled time for the MSP TFR was 12:20 local time so I planned my departure for a half hour before that. I fired up, got the ATIS and taxi clearance at 11:45 with a "clearance on request" for the IFR. At the runnup area I was told that there'd be a "slight delay" for the clearance due to the TFR which had just been moved up to 12 O'clock (still 10 minutes away) and they gave me my pre-takeoff clearance. That clearance BTW, was a bit nonsensical with a dogleg to RST (40 NM east of our route) then down V161 which while it does pass near my destination (KIKV), there doesn't seem to be any published transition from the airway to the approach into IKV. I figured I would sort things out in the air, not wanting to delay any further.
Then they told me that approach wouldn't approve my takeoff until after the TFR expired an hour an a half later. Gee thanks. I still don't understand why they needed to close FCM for traffic that was departing away from the TFR or how anyone thought it was reasonable to prohibit traffic outside the published TFR area. I did talk to someone in the MSP TRACON about this while cooling my heels in the FBO waiting for the TFR to be lifted and was told that the decision to close FCM was made by ATC, but was unable to get an explanation as to why this was done or why it wasn't published.
Eventually, around 1 PM the airport was opened for traffic and we got airborne at 1:05, an hour and 10 minutes behind schedule. Strangely no new route clearance was issued, (they said my old clearance was still valid) and upon departure we were pretty much cleared direct to destination.
I had called Scott Shekels earlier about going along and he readily agreed to keep me company on the flight. We had some pleasant conversation along the way in addition to sharing our disgust at the way things were handled and presidential TFR's in general.
The hour long flight to Ankeny IA was smooth and uneventful except for the landing which neither Scott nor I were willing to take credit for (I "assisted" Scott on his first B55 landing attempt) as it was a little "firm". Actually it wasn't all that bad, just definitely not a greaser. It was well centered with no drift and with a good nose high attitude (Really, Scott, I've done worse).
After a quick potty break (we used part of the TFR delay to make a quick stop at Taco Bell and I finished my big drink during the flight), we took pictures and loaded up the kids. On the taxi out to the runway one of the kids kept saying something "mayday, maday, we're going down" but that stopped once we were airborne. We had to climb up to 7000 to escape the thermal bumps which put us into a 15 Kt headwind but the skies remained clear all the way. The direct route from IKV to MZH (Moose Lake airport near Camp Heartland) passes through the MSP Class B and anticipating that my "Compassion" callsign might not hold much sway with the TRACON folks I asked center to check with approach about 60 NM out WRT my route over or around MSP. ATC came back with "your route should be fine if you descend to 5000" so I did that only to have MSP approach turn me 40 degrees left and send me way east just before we would have entered the Class B. Sigh.
When we landed at Moose Lake, there were a couple of camp staffers waiting for the kids and after a little more picture taking Scott and I taxied to the self serve for some gas. Annoyingly the pump decided to shut off about 10 gallons shy of filling my tanks and I then went through a comical six rounds of "swipe the card" to get it working again and finish the fillup.
The final leg back to KFCM went fine except for the two airplanes that ATC called and neither of us could see. We decided they must have been testing a cloaking device, but given that the visibility was 20-30 miles there wasn't too much concern on our part beyond wondering if our vision was failing.
All in all a good afternoon's flying on a nice day.
Then they told me that approach wouldn't approve my takeoff until after the TFR expired an hour an a half later. Gee thanks. I still don't understand why they needed to close FCM for traffic that was departing away from the TFR or how anyone thought it was reasonable to prohibit traffic outside the published TFR area. I did talk to someone in the MSP TRACON about this while cooling my heels in the FBO waiting for the TFR to be lifted and was told that the decision to close FCM was made by ATC, but was unable to get an explanation as to why this was done or why it wasn't published.
Eventually, around 1 PM the airport was opened for traffic and we got airborne at 1:05, an hour and 10 minutes behind schedule. Strangely no new route clearance was issued, (they said my old clearance was still valid) and upon departure we were pretty much cleared direct to destination.
I had called Scott Shekels earlier about going along and he readily agreed to keep me company on the flight. We had some pleasant conversation along the way in addition to sharing our disgust at the way things were handled and presidential TFR's in general.
The hour long flight to Ankeny IA was smooth and uneventful except for the landing which neither Scott nor I were willing to take credit for (I "assisted" Scott on his first B55 landing attempt) as it was a little "firm". Actually it wasn't all that bad, just definitely not a greaser. It was well centered with no drift and with a good nose high attitude (Really, Scott, I've done worse).
After a quick potty break (we used part of the TFR delay to make a quick stop at Taco Bell and I finished my big drink during the flight), we took pictures and loaded up the kids. On the taxi out to the runway one of the kids kept saying something "mayday, maday, we're going down" but that stopped once we were airborne. We had to climb up to 7000 to escape the thermal bumps which put us into a 15 Kt headwind but the skies remained clear all the way. The direct route from IKV to MZH (Moose Lake airport near Camp Heartland) passes through the MSP Class B and anticipating that my "Compassion" callsign might not hold much sway with the TRACON folks I asked center to check with approach about 60 NM out WRT my route over or around MSP. ATC came back with "your route should be fine if you descend to 5000" so I did that only to have MSP approach turn me 40 degrees left and send me way east just before we would have entered the Class B. Sigh.
When we landed at Moose Lake, there were a couple of camp staffers waiting for the kids and after a little more picture taking Scott and I taxied to the self serve for some gas. Annoyingly the pump decided to shut off about 10 gallons shy of filling my tanks and I then went through a comical six rounds of "swipe the card" to get it working again and finish the fillup.
The final leg back to KFCM went fine except for the two airplanes that ATC called and neither of us could see. We decided they must have been testing a cloaking device, but given that the visibility was 20-30 miles there wasn't too much concern on our part beyond wondering if our vision was failing.
All in all a good afternoon's flying on a nice day.
