sigh....TFR

[SkyHog]

.....

 

[gibbons]

I'm tempted to get my instructor to file IFR with me to get out of the TFR and go fly...Double Sigh.

Be sure to have your instructor brush up on his/her intercept procedures. I've never seen a Presidential TFR that would allow IFR traffic unless the airplane is carrying: a) the President; or b) armed weapons.

Chip

 

[EdFred]

If you are in the 10-30nm ring you can file and fly - even VFR. But you can't do practice stuff in the ring. You have to leave the ring. Inside the 10nm ring - you're SOL.

 

[kath]

I'm tempted to get my instructor to file IFR with me to get out of the TFR and go fly...but I am also tempted to just sit at home and wish I was up there....

The presidential TFR's around here have been "10 mile no-fly, this means you and you and everyone!" plus a "between 10 and 30 miles, just be on an IFR or VFR active flight plan, be squawking and talking" style. I took a quick look at the Albequerque one and it looks similar. Flight training is prohibited (no random steep turns or practice maneuvers). But you don't need to be IFR. Just file a VFR flight plan to some destination, be sure to activate it and squawk and talk and all that, and go. Go straight to your destination, that is. No random maneuvers. (And avoid the no-fly zone!)

--Kath

 

[MSmith]

I've flown in the 10-30NM ring of a presidential TFR - last November (first XC flight with a passenger after getting my private). It takes a LOT of planning.

You need 2 flight plans - the regular Search-and-Rescue plan (they call it an SAR plan) for the full route, and another ADIZ VFR flight plan for the TFR. You need to figure out exactly WHERE and WHEN (within 15 minutes or so) you will enter and leave the TFR (including takeoffs and landings).

If you're entering from the outside, you'll have to contact ATC and I'd recommend flight following. Contact ATC at least 10 minutes before entry - to give them a chance to find your plan. Once they find it, they'll give you a squawk (from the IFR numbers - not one that starts with zero) and clear you into the TFR. If you don't hear "cleared into the ADIZ", ASK before entering. If you think they cleared you but didn't use that magic phrase, reply with "Understand cleared into the ADIZ" for the tape.

They'll be more strict than usual on turns and altitude - a lot like being VFR in Class B. Also, you have to keep the squawk code ALL THE WAY TO THE GROUND when you land inside the TFR - even if they approve frequency change to CTAF.

I'd never recommend it for transitional purpose if you can go around it. The controllers are seriously overworked and jumpy.

As Kath said above - no flight training in a TFR at all.

Last summer/fall, between Bush and Cheney we had one point where there were 4 TFRs in 10 days in SE PA!

 

[SCCutler]

I've flown in the 10-30NM ring of a presidential TFR - last November (first XC flight with a passenger after getting my private). It takes a LOT of planning.

You need 2 flight plans - the regular Search-and-Rescue plan (they call it an SAR plan) for the full route, and another ADIZ VFR flight plan for the TFR. You need to figure out exactly WHERE and WHEN (within 15 minutes or so) you will enter and leave the TFR (including takeoffs and landings).

TFRs are a pain in the butt-ock region, no doubt, but don't amplify them beyond what they really are. Read the NOTAM. Presidential TFRs are most decidedly not automatically ADIZs, and ADIZ procedures do not automatically apply.

I have flown around and through the 10-30 nm portion of P49 (Bush Ranch, Crawford, Texas) numerous times and, as long as you are vigilant and follow the simple rules, it is quite nearly a non-event.

Be on a flight plan, Squawking (assiged code), talking (flight following or IFR) and careful (maintain situational awareness and don't cut it close to the 10nm P-boundaries).

Maybe the controllers at Waco Approach are just used to it, but I have found them to be both relaxed and very accommodating in the operations when P49 is expanded. Inform yourself, prepare appropriately, and aviate.

I have even, while on VFR flight following and studiously navigating to skirt the expanded P49, been offered a direct-to-destination through the outer ring, even though I was not on an actual flight plan. Controller explained to me that he would be the one to bust me if I were to be busted and he was not trying to offer me trouble. I thanked and declined, since the savings would have been mere minutes, and I remain the PIC. Nowadays, of course, I just file IFR.

By the way, sometimes, if there is a GA airport near the fringe of the 10nm ring, they will allow carefully-planned departures (ie, departing runway w/ heading outbound, direct track out, etc.). Again, read the NOTAM.

Finally, always monitor 121.5; it is prudent and, in a distressing way, educational, to listen as an intercept of a hapless pilot progresses deeper into suspension land. The voice from the circling AWACS plane is always powerful and increasingly strident as the pilot gets further into trouble. The culmination, of course, is hearing those saddening words, "F16 intercept in progress."

 

[Toby]

Finally, always monitor 121.5; it is prudent and, in a distressing way, educational, to listen as an intercept of a hapless pilot progresses deeper into suspension land. The voice from the circling AWACS plane is always powerful and increasingly strident as the pilot gets further into trouble. The culmination, of course, is hearing those saddening words, "F16 intercept in progress."

Yesterday I went to the first 2 hrs of an Operation Raincheck held here at New York Center for the first time since 9/11. The Center controller told us that there is a control center in Florida (I don't remember what it's called) that monitors all the sectors above NY's class B airspace. They are watching all the time. There are a lot of F15s and F16s in orbit up there, and if someone penetrates a presidential TFR they will come down in a hurry. You CAN be shot down.

 

[MSmith]

TFRs are a pain in the butt-ock region, no doubt, but don't amplify them beyond what they really are. Read the NOTAM. Presidential TFRs are most decidedly not automatically ADIZs, and ADIZ procedures do not automatically apply.

All I can give is the benefit of my experience. After 4 calls to FSS (with 4 different answers - I had to take the consensus), help from the Internet and AOPA, this was what I came up with.

The word "ADIZ" was used by the FSS and ATC, even though it WASN'T an actual ADIZ (Bush was going to the Army-Navy game in Philly).

It's probably different in Texas and Maryland, where the FSS and ATC folks are used to the procedures by now. Up here, the TFRs happen often enough to be annoying but not often enough that people understand what to do. That alone probably makes them worse than your experiences.

It's doable, but you have to be willing to take on the extra legwork and ATC hassles.