If you are interested, you can keep him. We are used to 30 NM radius restricted areas around the location where he is and usually a 10 NM radius no fly zone for general aviation. This is a real pain during election time.
I will never understand politics. 1 person attempts to blow up a plane with a shoe, we all have to remove our shoes and x-ray. Yet countless killings from guns and the US still has them on free circulation. ..
Numerous attempts on leaders lives from cars and other land based vehicles, no policies of protection... but a no fly zone for GA. How many successful assasinations have been made from a GA aircraft?
When will we move away from all this perceived risk bollocks and go to actual data lead truth?
I think the reason that GA is not frequently used as a tool for terrorism is because it's obviously hard to find people with a brain who are happy to kill themselves.
9/11 was one such case (I believe at least one of them had managed to get a CPL/IR) but I can't think of any others. And 9/11 took years of planning, and cost a lot of money.
Fairly obviously, it's very hard to dig up such people. If it was easy, they would all be doing it.
Here in the UK, we had the Olympic restricted zone last year. There was a massive amount of moaning and it did damage the training business inside the zone, but I think everybody could see why it was done.
IMHO, GA is a great freedom, which is why any half respectable dictator doesn't allow it. Where I come from (Czechoslovakia) it was allowed only to the most trusted Party creeps and brown-nosers. Where I lived in the 1960s, Pribram LKPM, the head of the uranium mines used to fly a Morava twin, but that was about it for GA. (Funnily enough he too defected eventually). I had a flight in that twin, aged 5, apparently because he fancied my mother... (that was his other hobby).
Well, it's a psychologic issue. Humans like to do something when there is a problem/threat. Doing something is perceived to be better than not doing anything. If something happens, you get in trouble for not having done anything even if the only options of doing something are pointless or counterproductive.
"What have you done to ensure the President's safety?"
"I have established a no-fly zone of 50NM around him"
Sounds a lot better than "Nothing, I think he'll be just fine."
I can live with that thinking and activism. However, I can not live with government continuously eroding citizen rights. Flying my airplane around Berlin is my right as a citizen of the EU. The government is there for us and not the other way around. We used to have a much saner approach than the US but we're getting to the US level of paranoia fast. Remember the Swedish minister that was assassinated in a shopping mall a few years ago? Until then, it was common for top politicians in Scandinavia (the sanest place in the western world) to roam freely without security detail. No more.
I agree, but I can't think of any other technical solution.
I suppose they could have the meeting in some underground bunker, but presumably they don't want to do that.
How do you pronounce the name LKPM? It's worse than Welsh, at least they would throw in a few Ys and Ws.
LKPM is the ICAO code for the airport 
I've just checked notams for a little flight today and see that tomorrow we have a massive RA for the Queen's birthday, tomorrow. The notam is 85nm radius, though if one plotted the long list of coordinates, or looked it up properly in some AIC, it would be smaller.
I've just checked notams for a little flight today and see that tomorrow we have a massive RA for the Queen's birthday, tomorrow. The notam it is 85nm radius, though if one plotted the long list of coordinates, or looked it up properly in some AIC, it would be smaller.
Yes, from where I am, the only option for me is to go North really. SkyDemon plots the area nicely and it is fairly narrow (maybe 5NM wide), but one is quite long and starts near London City and proceeds NE around the south of the Stansted zone up to near Lowestoft and out over the coast. The other one seemingly coming out of Brize Norton across to Halton airfield and heading past BNN towards Heathrow somewhere. She is obviously jealous of Mr Obama having some of the sky just to himself.
Peter wrote:
I think the reason that GA is not frequently used as a tool for terrorism is because it's obviously hard to find people with a brain who are happy to kill themselves.
I think there is very little bang for the buck. At most, the kinetic energy of a light GA airplane, will mess up the paint on a skyscraper, maybe kill one or two other than the pilot. I find it ironic that the airplanes that can do real damage are always permitted to fly, whereas the GA aircraft are not. There were a few incidents that come to mind, the Cessna that crashed on the White house lawn, the Cessna that crashed into a building in Tampa, the Cirrus that hit an apartment building in NY. In all cases there were no fatalities in the buildings. A nuclear power plant is supposed to be designed to survive a 727 flying into the containment building, I doubt a Cessna would do more than leave a mark.
"What have you done to ensure the President's safety?"
"I have established a no-fly zone of 50NM around him"
Sounds a lot better than "Nothing, I think he'll be just fine."
I agree completely, but this also summarises my point beautifully... Because the next part of the conversation should be:-
"Why? Will a 50 NM no-fly zone increase safety?"
I honestly think that the only reason 9/11 worked was precisely conditioning of people at the time, and ironically the skies are safer now than they have ever been, but we live in this message of fear from above droned on about by politicians.
Why do I think that?
Well I think, that 9/11 was successful only because people were used to hijackings where you would fly off to the arse end of the world, and be stuck in the corner of some derelict airfield for 3 days until the lack of food and stink from 200 people not showering overcame the hijackers, and everyone went home.
Since 9/11 how many attempted hijackings have there been? A few, yes, and how many have been successful?
I also think it is interesting that the only headline news we get supports the fear mongering... I was genuinely shocked at the way the Cirrus parachute story was put across... Where was the death rained from the sky headline????
