Does anyone really hear you on the radio?

IamBull said:
Confirming with ATC that a MOA is cold and flying through it is one thing, but blitsing through a hot MOA in your Cessna is extremely unsafe and stupid. For those that avoid hot MOA's, good on ya'. For those that don't: get a friggin clue before you kill yourself and others.
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I've been cleared through an MOA a few times while it was hot, though each time I was crossing on the south end and the controller just notified the mil pilot to stay clear of the southern portion of the MOA.

Just my personal experience.
 
FlyNE said:
I didn't see anybody in this thread advocating NORDO through an MOA.
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wsuffa said:
I will point out that the reaction of the controller in this case certainly doesn't make ANY GA pilot want to talk to those controllers.
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wsuffa said:
Can you say "just don't bother talking to ATC?"
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Interesting.
 
wbarnhill said:
I've been cleared through an MOA a few times while it was hot, though each time I was crossing on the south end and the controller just notified the mil pilot to stay clear of the southern portion of the MOA.

Just my personal experience.
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Flying through a hot moa even while talking to someone is still not a good plan. It still causes the mil aircraft to knock it off and discontinue what they were doing. Sometimes it just constricts the airspace to the point where they can accomplish nothing effective. Sometimes it's a safety of flight issue. It depends.
 
Patch said:
Interesting.
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That was in regards to talking with ATC in general, not flying NORDO through a hot MOA. Maybe he will avoid talking to ATC and fly around the MOA. Making the assumption that he'd go barreling through whatever airspace he wants is a stretch at best...thus negating the need for a lecture.
 
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Patch said:
Flying through a hot moa even while talking to someone is still not a good plan. It still causes the mil aircraft to knock it off and discontinue what they were doing. Sometimes it just constricts the airspace to the point where they can accomplish nothing effective. Sometimes it's a safety of flight issue. It depends.
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For the record, I asked if it was hot, Shaw said it was but said to go ahead through. I was ready to go around it (I really was near the south border of the airspace), but when a controller tells me "OK", I tend to go with their judgment, that's all.
 
This is why I think it's funny to do large circles throughout the entire dimension of the MOA covering all altitudes. I'm always a happy camper when I see the jets give up and fly home.
 
Somehow theres this strong urge to moon 'em as they fly by. :D

I honestly haven't had any trouble with MOAs. My first two XCs were through two MOAs. Most of the time it was just wiser to be on flight following. They're actually students too but I believe they have better equipment on the ground and in the air to notice most airplanes. We have a TON of ultralights and students out there and almost as many MOAs so something seems to be working.
 
jesse said:
This is why I think it's funny to do large circles throughout the entire dimension of the MOA covering all altitudes. I'm always a happy camper when I see the jets give up and fly home.
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Tristar said:
Somehow theres this strong urge to moon 'em as they fly by. :D
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Ok between the two of ya someone owes me a new keyboard!!! :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
Tristar said:
They're actually students too but I believe they have better equipment on the ground and in the air to notice most airplanes. We have a TON of ultralights and students out there and almost as many MOAs so something seems to be working.
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That's the point. We don't. We don't have magical powers or equipment or anything like that except for a pair of standard issue Mk1 Eyeballs. Mil aircraft sometimes even hit each other in MOAs, what makes you think they can avoid your tiny little Cessna?
 
Patch said:
That's the point. We don't. We don't have magical powers or equipment or anything like that except for a pair of standard issue Mk1 Eyeballs. Mil aircraft sometimes even hit each other in MOAs, what makes you think they can avoid your tiny little Cessna?
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Patch, you are a military aviator, I am convinced that you have superhuman skills with the highest levels of intelligence, strength, and magical powers, ever put into a single human. There is no possible way a precisely engineered human like you could make a mistake. I do regret not noticing your amazing qualities months ago. I will now formally recognize them in front of everyone.

Military aviators are perfect and by far superior to me.

You guys amaze me. This is why I feel completely safe circling inside your hot MOAs.
 
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jesse said:
Well, given the way you guys talk, I would have thought that your Mark 1 eyeballs combined with your superior intelligence and training would be flawless.
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They're military, just like the rest of their equipment, their Mk1 eyeballs were made by the lowest bidder ;)

I keed! I keed! :D
 
Patch said:
That's the point. We don't. We don't have magical powers or equipment or anything like that except for a pair of standard issue Mk1 Eyeballs. Mil aircraft sometimes even hit each other in MOAs, what makes you think they can avoid your tiny little Cessna?
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I learned to fly at Navy Jax and I shared the field with P-3's and A-7's along with a few other oddballs that flew in and out. We stayed out of their way and we respected their entry in and out of the airspace. If we were already base, then we had priority to land (smaller aircraft did not fly a downwind). Likewise with their birds.

Mutual respect for what everyone was trying to accomplish was what allowed both Navy aircraft and the Navy Flying Club to coexist peacefully. Without it, guess who would be sent packing? And, if an MOA becomes a difficult area for military pilots I have no doubt they could procedurally bump it up to a restricted area. Then, who suffers?
 
"Arrrright in the furball! Knock it off! Knock it off!!
Patch and Bull, join up and vector 180 until tanks dry - then resume own navigation."

Damn fighter jocks always acting like they got better equipment than mine...
 
How dare small planes fly in our airspace....

The problem is that that MOA was GA airspace long before the military took it. The military needs to recognize that they are putting a burden on normal travel for GA, not try to hide behind the story of GA causing loss of training opportunities. The military already has about 1/3 of the entire state of New Mexico at its disposal in restricted areas, not to mention how much space across the United States.

There's a reason MOAs are not R-space. While I try to avoid them if its not a heavy burden on me to do so, I will not fly miles and miles and miles on end off course to avoid spending 5-10 minutes in an MOA so that some jetjock can come out and tell me that its their airspace.

edit: actually, 1/3 is a bit high, but still, there is a LOT of restricted airspace in the country. Use it.
 
jesse said:
Patch, you are a military aviator, I am convinced that you have superhuman skills with the highest levels of intelligence, strength, and magical powers, ever put into a single human. There is no possible way a precisely engineered human like you could make a mistake. I do regret not noticing your amazing qualities months ago. I will now formally recognize them in front of everyone.

Military aviators are perfect and by far superior to me.

You guys amaze me. This is why I feel completely safe circling inside your hot MOAs.
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I appreciate it, but stick to runway light landscaping.
 
SkyHog said:
How dare small planes fly in our airspace....

The problem is that that MOA was GA airspace long before the military took it. The military needs to recognize that they are putting a burden on normal travel for GA, not try to hide behind the story of GA causing loss of training opportunities. The military already has about 1/3 of the entire state of New Mexico at its disposal in restricted areas, not to mention how much space across the United States.

There's a reason MOAs are not R-space. While I try to avoid them if its not a heavy burden on me to do so, I will not fly miles and miles and miles on end off course to avoid spending 5-10 minutes in an MOA so that some jetjock can come out and tell me that its their airspace.

edit: actually, 1/3 is a bit high, but still, there is a LOT of restricted airspace in the country. Use it.
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Right, because your HOBBY is much more important to the common interest of the country than the training of the military. :rolleyes: What a load of self-righteous crap.

The bottom line is this: MOAs are dangerous places for civilian non-participating aircraft. Military aircraft do not have the luxury of blitzing around changing airspace, we're limited to the confines of the moa (which are often sectioned into smaller pieces so that multiple aircraft can use the same MOA). The airspace we have is very limited as it is, and you're suggesting that we do more with less.

You've never sat in the other seat, but I can tell you that it does have an impact. We spend maybe 20-30 minutes in a MOA, and when that time is spent looking for a Cessna buzzing around (when he could have just flown a few thousand feet lower to avoid the moa completely at times) kills training.

I fly GA as well, and I'm even more committed now to staying they heck away from MOAs even if it inconveniences me. Why? Because I've seen how dangerous it can be, and I know it's **** poor planning to do it "because I can."
 
Lotsa kitties need their dishes of milk today. :D

I always talk with the controlling agency when flying at or close to MOAs (of which there are lots in all the places I fly), and only rarely am I asked to deviate. When asked, I readily comply.
 
Guys, this discussion is getting ridiculous. As a GA pilot I can certainly relate to the lost time and extended fuel costs by having to go around MOA's and other areas from time-to-time. BUT, as a former military pilot I know how it looks from the other side as well and if some of you guys had that experience, your attitude would be different.

One thing that needs to be understood is when you fly on a military mission, it's the mission itself that has the highest priority. The airplane is just a platform for that mission. This means that when flying in a MOA, military pilots have LOTS more to do than to just fly the airplane. Talking to ground control, wing man, other flights/groups, AWACS, working with the radar, tracking "enemies", looking for targets, etc., etc,. All this at very high speed and sometimes low altitude. There's not much time or opportunities to look for slow flying GA aircraft as well and it is very frustrating to have to abort a mission JUST when you have everything set up because a slow aircraft is entering the MOA. It does screw up valuable training and it is wasting hundreds of gallons of fuel.
That being said, someone suggested that "the military has plenty of airspace for the training".
Well, yes and no. There's lots of space in the desert but not up here in Michigan or many other states. It is also important that military pilots can train over different kinds of terrain, temperatures, etc. The military needs the MOA's but are also trying to work the schedules to avoid having the MOA's "hot" all the time.
Personally, I stay out of MOA's if I can because it IS a dangerous environment.


I believe that both GA and the military can work together on this but it takes some understanding from both sides and frankly, I've seen much more of that from the military side than I have from the GA side.
GA pilots need to understand the military mission and military pilots need to understand the freedom and costs for GA.
Some of the comments I've seen in this thread about military pilots makes me disgusted.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Capflyer said:
GA pilots need to understand the military mission and military pilots need to understand the freedom and costs for GA.
Some of the comments I've seen in this thread about military pilots makes me disgusted.

Just my 2 cents.
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Well said, and I believe most of the comments were out of humor, or at least mine were. I'm not really a fan of flying into a hot MOA and quite frankly I don't think I've ever done it. At the same time there are some MOA's that cover a lot of altitude and a lot of space. The cost of me going around these would be in the hundreds of dollars, directly out of my pocket.

I understand that interfering with military training is also very costly as well for the government. Cooperation on all sides is important. If I owned my own airplane and was just thinking in terms of fuel burn things would be different. As a rental pilot I think in terms of hobbs time which runs me $1.80 per minute.
 
Capflyer said:
Guys, this discussion is getting ridiculous. As a GA pilot I can certainly relate to the lost time and extended fuel costs by having to go around MOA's and other areas from time-to-time. BUT, as a former military pilot I know how it looks from the other side as well and if some of you guys had that experience, your attitude would be different.

One thing that needs to be understood is when you fly on a military mission, it's the mission itself that has the highest priority. The airplane is just a platform for that mission. This means that when flying in a MOA, military pilots have LOTS more to do than to just fly the airplane. Talking to ground control, wing man, other flights/groups, AWACS, working with the radar, tracking "enemies", looking for targets, etc., etc,. All this at very high speed and sometimes low altitude. There's not much time or opportunities to look for slow flying GA aircraft as well and it is very frustrating to have to abort a mission JUST when you have everything set up because a slow aircraft is entering the MOA. It does screw up valuable training and it is wasting hundreds of gallons of fuel.
That being said, someone suggested that "the military has plenty of airspace for the training".
Well, yes and no. There's lots of space in the desert but not up here in Michigan or many other states. It is also important that military pilots can train over different kinds of terrain, temperatures, etc. The military needs the MOA's but are also trying to work the schedules to avoid having the MOA's "hot" all the time.
Personally, I stay out of MOA's if I can because it IS a dangerous environment.


I believe that both GA and the military can work together on this but it takes some understanding from both sides and frankly, I've seen much more of that from the military side than I have from the GA side.
GA pilots need to understand the military mission and military pilots need to understand the freedom and costs for GA.
Some of the comments I've seen in this thread about military pilots makes me disgusted.

Just my 2 cents.
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"2"

Excellent post, and well said.
 
Patch said:
Right, because your HOBBY is much more important to the common interest of the country than the training of the military. :rolleyes: What a load of self-righteous crap.
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I smell more than one load of crap. Based in Jax and flying throughout Florida and the rest of the southeast, I routinely fly in, under, around and over military areas, although I'm generally IFR. I, for one, am sick of the military's ever-increasing airspace grabs. So yeah, do more with less. Private business does. Self employed people do. It's time for the govt -- in all aspects -- to realize this ain't a world of endless resources. Tell you what, if me flying through an MOA for 20 minutes is a deterrent to the combat readiness of the United States military, we got a bunch more problems than we're talking about here.
 
One time, I went to an argument, and a Pilots of America discussion broke out.
-harry
 
Ken Ibold said:
I smell more than one load of crap. Based in Jax and flying throughout Florida and the rest of the southeast, I routinely fly in, under, around and over military areas, although I'm generally IFR. I, for one, am sick of the military's ever-increasing airspace grabs. So yeah, do more with less. Private business does. Self employed people do. It's time for the govt -- in all aspects -- to realize this ain't a world of endless resources. Tell you what, if me flying through an MOA for 20 minutes is a deterrent to the combat readiness of the United States military, we got a bunch more problems than we're talking about here.
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Well said.

BTW - its not just a HOBBY as Patch so eloquently puts it. It is often business and travel that is affected. For example, I would never, ever, enter a hot MOA to do practice maneuvers. To do so would be horribly wrong and pigheaded.

However, to get from point A to point B, if I'm face with the option of entering an MOA (because the military decided it needed airspace from 0agl to 18,000ft agl) or diverting 1 hour either way, I'm going to go into the MOA, and the military will have to learn to use a smaller area.

The military is one of the most important things we have in America, and I'm not anti military (although I am anti-pompous jetjock). I am, however, anti airspace grab of any sort. The MOA over Lake Havasu is actually an important one, and easily traversable. They do practice of in flight refueling over this area, which is a very important skill to practice. They were also smart enough to make the MOA only go from 7000ft to 18000ft, which leaves 6999 ft of area to go underneath.

I can't remember where it was, but on the way back from Gastons, Sheri and I were faced with this exact decision, but the options were divert for over an hour or penetrate a MOA that went from surface to bottom of Class A. That's just irresponsible of the military, and as such, we chose to penetrate. Sorry guys, despite what everyone thinks, not everyone flying General Aviation airplanes are rich.
 
Well said, Capflyer. Though I reiterate my point that this was never a discussion about flying through hot MOAs until baseless assumptions were made and needless lectures given.
 
Excellent post, Capflyer.

Ken Ibold said:
Private business does. Self employed people do. It's time for the govt -- in all aspects -- to realize this ain't a world of endless resources. Tell you what, if me flying through an MOA for 20 minutes is a deterrent to the combat readiness of the United States military, we got a bunch more problems than we're talking about here.
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Since when is national defense a private business? Apples and oranges, dude. For the record we are doing more with less. Flying hours are being cut like it's going out of style. Therefore, we have less time to do what we need to do in the MOA to accomplish training, and even less time when training is interupted by civilian aircraft. I guess my real beef is with ATC vectoring aircraft through a hot MOA while we have to wait 6-9 minutes for them to be clear. You'd also be suprised at how many aircraft fly through without talking to anyone.
 
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FlyNE said:
Well said, Capflyer. Though I reiterate my point that this was never a discussion about flying through hot MOAs until baseless assumptions were made and needless lectures given.
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The original topic was about a guy flying through Vance's MOAs. The discussion began with someone suggesting that he'd have been better off not talking to anyone (instead of just not saying stupid things on the radio).
 
Patch said:
The original topic was about a guy flying through Vance's MOAs. The discussion began with someone suggesting that he'd have been better off not talking to anyone (instead of just not saying stupid things on the radio).
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It said he was entering Vance's "airspace"...and I'll reiterate once again that perhaps Bill meant that he would just fly around controlled airspace as opposed to having to talk to controllers.

Get off of your high horse and quit making assumptions. We don't need you to lecture us. Call me a SNAP if you'd like, but I'd be willing to bet that I've had my certificate longer than you've been out of high school. I'm not saying that makes me a better pilot, mind you, but I am saying that I've proven to the FAA and countless CFI's that I'm fully capable of making sound decisions and safely controlling my aircraft. Despite the fact that you fly jets you're not an aviation authority whose job it is to keep us safe and sound.
 
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Patch said:
Right, because your HOBBY is much more important to the common interest of the country than the training of the military. :rolleyes: What a load of self-righteous crap.
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I have met the enemy and he is us.

I avoid MOA airspace whenever possible, however there is a big one all over northwest Iowa that is hot pretty regularly. It is an inconvience, but I do my best.


P.S. Patch, many of us do not consider flying a hobby anymore than I consider driving a hobby. I make money doing it and I lose money having to fly around MOA's.


James Dean
 
mikea said:
It might be interesting to see if C90 would be more likely to talk to you if told them you were going over the top of ORD. They'd likely vector you 20 miles outside of the extended B boundaries. :rolleyes:
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You know, that gives me an idea.

I'm gonna keep trying to get flight following from Chicago Approach, and when they give it to me, after a few minutes, I'm gonna say "Chicago Approach, Nxxx, terminate flight following." :D :rofl:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
You know, that gives me an idea.

I'm gonna keep trying to get flight following from Chicago Approach, and when they give it to me, after a few minutes, I'm gonna say "Chicago Approach, Nxxx, terminate flight following." :D :rofl:
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That'll show em, it surely will.
 
kent, it really isnt that hard to get flight following from C90. just call them up and tell them you'll be flying back and forth across the main arrival into O'hare, just outside the Bravo doing photo work for the next 4 hours. you get a squawk code quicker than you would believe. they knew that if they turned us away we'd just sit there and squawk 1200 and theyd have to vector the jets around us. with us talking they could inconvenience us instead of them.
 
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