Never Waste A Disaster To Increase Government Control

Hudson River To Become Yet Another "No Fly Zone"?


Back in the late 1950's when my Dad was learning to fly in the Army you could basically get in an airplane, start the engine, and take off in any direction as far as the gas in your gas tank would take you.

By the time I started flight training in 1991 at McCullum airfield in Kennesaw, Georgia the little airport didn't have a control tower but we had to learn to talk on a "Unicom" radio system, maintain a "pattern" and "Pattern Altitude", and stay underneath the screaming fighter jets and lumbering C-130 transport planes from nearby Dobbins Air Reserve Base and the aircraft coming and going into Atlanta's Hartsfield (and now Jackson) International Airport.

The air regulations and restrictions have gotten stricter and stricter since then (ever seen a book called AIM/FAR...Airman Information Manual/Federal Air Regulations?) and before it's over I say basically no one is going to go no where...unless it's on Delta Airlines.

Today after 9/11 you can't fly without government mandate over places like Disney World and Pro and College football stadiums during games in progress and most downtown metro areas (unless you're towing an Ad Banner or are the president in Air Force One.)

Any way, as a result of the recent mid-air collision, does anyone want to bet with me that within the year the Class B airspace under 1000 foot altitude along New York's Hudson River will be changed to be off limits completely or require some kind of new government mandated "permit" to fly within (of course the "permit" is just another form of Tax?)

I say that it will...because the Government just can't restrain itself these days from passing new laws when something happens instead of enforcing the existing laws already in place.

You see, unlike drivers today blabbing and texting on cell phones and wrecking their cars in the process, as a pilot you are trained to be able to fly the airplane, talk on the radio, scan you insturment panel, and look at complex maps while in the air...but YOUR PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY IS TO TO KEEP YOUR EYEBALLS FOCUSED 99% OF THE TIME OUTSIDE THE COCKPIT.

It was your job to look for other air traffic, mantain a mental picture of the terrain around you, and even keep in mind flat smooth areas with gliding distance should you lose engine power.

During training I'd be flying along worrying about whatever subject me and my instructor were working on that day and he would just suddenly close the engine throttle and ask "you just lost your engine...what are you going to do and where you going to go?"

Then he would sit there and watch me go through all of the emergency procedures (except calling on the radio) and set the plane up for a landing in a pasture or whatever clear space I was supposed to have noticed in the past five minuets as we were flying along.

Then maybe 500 feet off the ground would he give me engine power again and make me start climbing back up as he told me how dead I would be because of whatever mistakes I had made in the exercise.

Just now I just I had to sit through watching Geraldo Rivera on FOX News ranting about how the air traffic controllers at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport were responsible for the accident this week. The CONTROLLERS...not the PILOTS

BULLCRAP...

If the private plane or helicopter had strayed out of the VFR (visual flight rules) corridor and hit an AIRLINER coming out of Newark or LaGuardia or JFK I'd blame the controller for not making a call, but...

As an aviator I suggest that the Pilots are each responsible for this event, because radios can fail and other people like flight controllers make mistakes or get distracted and in the end it's the PILOT that's responsible for maintaining separation between aircraft, not the government flight controllers.

I guarandamntee you both these pilots were talking to the other people in the cockpit and looking at the ground and pointing and waiving their arms rather than focusing on flying their aircraft like they normally would be doing over rural Kansas.

I know that crap like this I write about is over the heads of or of no interest to much of the general public, but dammit people...

if someone that knows doesn't tell you the details, the media will just leave you stranded sitting around your TV's knowing nothing.

...so know you know.



and you're Welcome.