M
Mike R
Guest
I live in northern Virginia and would like to fly VFR to Bay Bridge airport without going all the way around the SFRA. Looks like a narrow corridor - any tips?
mantakos
Final Approach
Sounds like you're asking about the corridor between BWI and DCA, no?
If so, many pilots refuse to fly this corridor, though I'm not one of them, and have done it at least a couple bazillion times. This is for GPS, with the needles centered, and right on your altitude, because you're skimming along just outside the edge of the FRZ. I fly the line between VPONX and VPOOP, at 2300. It's tempting to drop down below 1500 so you don't have to worry about clipping the Class Bravo shelf, allowing you to fly farther North, increasing your distance from the FRZ, but you'll find yourself nose-to-nose with a lot of traffic inbound to FME at that altitude.
-harry
If so, many pilots refuse to fly this corridor, though I'm not one of them, and have done it at least a couple bazillion times. This is for GPS, with the needles centered, and right on your altitude, because you're skimming along just outside the edge of the FRZ. I fly the line between VPONX and VPOOP, at 2300. It's tempting to drop down below 1500 so you don't have to worry about clipping the Class Bravo shelf, allowing you to fly farther North, increasing your distance from the FRZ, but you'll find yourself nose-to-nose with a lot of traffic inbound to FME at that altitude.
-harry
PittsDriver
Cleared for Takeoff
"The proper squawk code" is a pre-reguisite for flying in the SFRA and you'll still have to be concerned with staying out of Class B. It's very, very unlikely you'll get a Class B transition anywhere around here but hey, ask - all they can do is tell you no like the other bazillion times they've told others. I've complained to the TRACON about this practice because, particularly on departures from Tipton without a Class B clearance, I was coming beak-to-beak with lots of traffic at high closure rates in a very narrow altitude range. I got the FAA equivalent of a shoulder shrug.
mantakos
Final Approach
The corridor is through the middle of the ADIZ, and so already assumes following ADIZ procedures. It's a squeeze between the FRZ to the South, which has heightened security requirements (vetting, background check, finger-printing, and not for transit), and BWI Class B airspace to the North. So the presumption is "it would be _very_ bad for me to snip the FRZ to the South, or for imprecise radar to think I did, and I won't be able to get a Class Bravo clearance for passage to the North, so I have to go down the middle".
As for getting a Bravo clearance, maybe others would have better information to pass on. I've only done it VFR a few times, and always directly over BWI. The times I've gone IFR, I've similarly been routed over BWI, though I've done a few vector departures from FME to the East that didn't take me out of my way.
-harry
Anthony
Touchdown! Greaser!
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Anthony
I was thinking he could go around the FRZ in the SFRA using the proper squawk codes. I don't know where he is based, so that was a poor assumption on my part. When I go to W29 its from the North, so when he said he was in NOVA, I made that assumption.
M
Mike R
Guest
Thanks for the replies! I am located at Leesburg, Virginia (KJYO). I have been concerned about encountering traffic at close range while flying VFR through such a narrow corridor. Also, as has been brought up, I am concerned about, Bravo and SFRA airspace. Taking off of Leesburg (inside the SFRA - and part of a special cutout) does not leave one much time to request special squawk before crossing into the rest of the SFRA. Almost seems easier to exit the SFRA then get more time to request/receive transit.
poadeleted20
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JYO-W29 VFR is a pretty crummy situation. Either you have to sneak through the Fort Meade Gap as described above (and I go through at 1400 MSL to give myself the larger corrodior), or go all the way up around north of BWI and over by Essex Skypark (W48) and try not to snag yourself on the big 1549 TV towers that stick up in to the 1500-foot shelf of the B-space about 10 north of BWI. I'm OK with going through the Gap, but it's always tense with eyeballs out all the way through.
You don't have to use the LMA procedures to get out of Leesburg if you're headed east/southeast -- you can still use the regular SFRA procedures by filing a DC SFRA flight plan and getting your squawk before takeoff from Potomac's CD freq at JYO.
TknoFlyer
Pre-takeoff checklist
+1. Just use 118.55 and open your plan on the ground. You may even be able to negotiate a Class B transition with the clearance controller.
That hasn't been my experience, but I'll admit it's been a while since I last requested VFR transition in the Chesapeake sector. The Shenandoah sector controllers have been rather accommodating whenever I've asked them.
