Increasing number of flight restrictions
Focus on Competition by Greg Hahn, Technical Director
If you don't already know or haven't yet had the fortune of receiving a temporary restriction pertaining to our model flying fields, you will stand a better chance as we get further into the presidential election. Since January 2009, our beloved hobby has been affected by flight restrictions for "very important person" (VIP) movements in and around the contiguous United States, specifically the President of the United States.
These restrictions are related to the presidential entourage as it moves from city to city for visits and functions. These temporary restrictions are announced in the form of an FAA NOTAM (Notice to Airmen).
If you're a full-scale pilot, you are made aware of these because they restrict your freedom as a pilot and must be adhered to religiously or consequences could follow. Often, breaking restricted airspace can lead to being escorted to the nearest airport by a pair of F-16s, followed closely by answering many questions—or worse.
I'm not indicating that these consequences are destined for us as modelers, but you should know that the FAA and Homeland Security take NOTAMs seriously and we should, too. Realize also that we aren't being singled out on this, because nearly every aviation-related activity, including free ballooning and skydiving, is also prohibited in the restricted areas.
We were recently given a clarification on whether FF and CL activities were included in the restrictions, and they are not, so those segments of the hobby are not required to stand down during the times and dates of the NOTAMs.
Here at AMA Headquarters, we have developed a procedure to get the pertinent information out to our affected members and clubs in as timely a manner as possible. Sometimes that can be a challenge considering we only receive 48 to 72 hours' notice of the restriction. Normally, the NOTAMs are sent to Rich Hanson and me directly from the FAA, so getting the information out has to be done immediately.
We take the latitude and longitude from the NOTAM and plug them into a formula we developed to query our AMA database for the clubs and members affected in that specific area. We prepare the appropriate statements and links to the FAA and post this information on the AMA website and also send push emails to the district vice presidents, district associate vice presidents, club presidents, and on down to the members.
We're trying to provide enough overlap so that few, if any, do not have access to the information needed. If you experience a problem getting the notices from AMA Headquarters, your spam filter may be stopping the email because of a content issue. By changing the parameters of your spam filter you can easily overcome this issue.
So far, the membership response we've received from our efforts has been positive and we hope you understand that, as users of the airspace, we now are recognized as a pertinent player, which is a good thing. This also plays along with our being recognized as an integral part of the FAA rulemaking process that has received much press lately within our ranks.
It's all part of staying ahead of the game and abreast of issues, presenting ourselves (modelers) as responsible users of the airspace, and making safety our first priority. For easy access I've included links to the two pertinent pages on our website where you can get the latest updates: www.modelaircraft.org/membership/clubs/notams.aspx http://tfr.faa.gov/tfr2/list.html
To clear up many questions, I'm including a list of the most-used acronyms that you see in the email notices we send out to you:
- TFR: Temporary Flight Restriction
- FAA: Federal Aviation Administration
- NOTAM: Notice to Airmen
- VORTAC: Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Radio Beacon with TACAN
- ATC: Air Traffic Control
- FDC: Federal Document Center
- EST: Eastern Standard Time
- CST: Central Standard Time
- MST: Mountain Standard Time
- PST: Pacific Standard Time
If you have questions or want to know more, feel free to email me.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
