Joint Base Andrews security

Plenty of military flight lines that aren’t very secure. Been to several base ops buildings where anyone who has access to the base can walk into base ops. Just walk right out the back door when no one is looking and you’ve got access to the flight line.
 
The base itself has your usual DoD pro-forma security. The facility for AF1 and the 757 is a separate fenced compound inside and you have to go through two indoor checkpoints before you get into the hangar. Sounds like the C40s are out on the general flightline.
 
When I was little I would walk myself to the flight line and sit on the edge of the concrete and eat my lunch. I often had airman wave at me when they passed by.
 
Velocity173 said:
Plenty of military flight lines that aren’t very secure. Been to several base ops buildings where anyone who has access to the base can walk into base ops. Just walk right out the back door when no one is looking and you’ve got access to the flight line.
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Heck it’s easy just to find yourself almost in the wrong hanger by accidentally opening the wrong door. You’d think they have those doors key padded....
 
ARFlyer said:
Heck it’s easy just to find yourself almost in the wrong hanger by accidentally opening the wrong door. You’d think they have those doors key padded....
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You could almost write a joke about that. Along the lines of "An old man had always wanted to learn to fly. He did well in life, but retirement was getting boring. So he went to the airport and an instructor said 'we can get you started right now.' Pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, he said 'Go into the hangar and get seated in the plane'".
@Sac Arrow could probably spin a tale around this.
 
At APG you couldn't get anywhere near the airport. You'd have to stop at the main post gate most times (unless you were smart enough to come in during rush hour when they're not checking every car). Then without a badge, you'd not get through the first security gate. Once through that you could drive out to the airport and onto the runway if you wanted.
 
I saw real security the day after the Murrah building was bombed. They re-routed traffic inside of WPAFB, and ran mirrors on wheels under every single car, looked in trunks, etc. After a few months, back to normal (except that the traffic pattern still avoided a certain building, and still did years later.) At the time I could have driven onto a runway; a few years later, that was impossible, and the gate nowadays is more formidable, with bollards that can be raised to stop a vehicle.
 
Another one that illustrates weaknesses in security. Navy SPs should have been all over this guy.

 
ARFlyer said:
When I was little I would walk myself to the flight line and sit on the edge of the concrete and eat my lunch. I often had airman wave at me when they passed by.
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I used to eat breakfast on the back porch of Miramar Tower Cafe and watch flight ops. Same one in Top Gun where Meg Ryan shows up in the DC-9. That cafe is gone but base ops area still has no gate restricting access to the flight line.

Frankly surprised military fields still use a base ops / wx center. All that stuff can be done at unit level. Kind of like FSSs.
 
flyingron said:
At APG you couldn't get anywhere near the airport. You'd have to stop at the main post gate most times (unless you were smart enough to come in during rush hour when they're not checking every car). ...
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um, I've never seen any base that doesn't check .... every ..... single ..... car. (post 9/11)
 
Bob Noel said:
um, I've never seen any base that doesn't check .... every ..... single ..... car. (post 9/11)
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It took a while for some Army installations to get there.

Break..break...

Today I was on Randolph and it was the first time in years all occupants had to provide an ID for entry. This is new since last Sunday when there only had to one DoD ID holder in the vehicle and nobody else was having to show any form of ID.
 
Velocity173 said:
Another one that illustrates weaknesses in security. Navy SPs should have been all over this guy.

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I'm dumbfounded by that. I spent 3 years on that base. Used to do training rappels out of the helo right where that numbnuts came to a stop. When I was there, there would have been several base security trucks with armed MA's there ASAP. There must be some kind of standing non-interference order or some drastic reduction in manning for the security force.

For those not familiar with NAS Lemoore, its in the middle of corporate farm fields that grow cotton, hay an mellons. There are literally hundreds of square miles of field rows, irrigation ditches and dirt roads around the base. There's fence. But, not much of one.
 
It is all security theater and job creation politics. I used to fly into a bunch of military airports, as a civilian contractor and At one airport to get to base ops from the flight line, I had to walk an extra 100 feet to go through a cut in the red line, versus just walking across the red line. I thought that was stupid, ignored it till I got caught. Just a lecture from some body bored in security. I complied for my job not because of the lecture.
 
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