Shaun,
First of all, can I say my thoughts are with all of you in the US - not just
my friends and colleagues over there.
As for your question: some of the partakers of this list may disagree with
me - and I'd be interested to hear their opinions - but I think this is an
appropriate topic for the list given the impact Tuesday's tragic events may
have on GA in general and Europa flying in particular.
It's not as bad as you state over here (or it wasn't until Tuesday - we're
currently grounded too (can someone confirm this - news reports are that we
are, but there is nothing on NATS web site bar the closed airspace over
central London)). We flew VFR without filing flight plans and, apart from a
few areas, had plenty of unrestricted airspace.
I think we should be careful to distinguish between sport flying and what
happened on Tuesday. Even grossly overloaded, a sport flyer in a homebuilt
couldn't deliver more than, say, a thousand pounds of high explosive onto a
target. Yes, this method could deliver a deadly payload to a very tightly
defined target, but it could never cause the devastation of Tuesday.
So will sport flying as we know it end? At the risk of being accused of
speculation, I think not. I would argue that a terrorist could achieve far
more with a van or truck packed with explosives than a light aircraft. To
severely restrict GA on these grounds would not be justified.
Possibly the owners of large aircraft should be concerned, though - a DC3,
WW2 bomber or the stunning polished Boeing at Oshkosh, for example, could be
perceived as a risk in view of their load-carrying capacity. Maybe these
types face tighter regulation?
At the extreme, one could ask how long it will be before a student pilot who
strays inadvertantly into controlled airspace is shot down?
I guess it's not just aviation entering a whole new era - it's the free
world. Apologies if that seems over-dramatic.
Regards,
Jeremy
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-europa@post.aviators.net
Subject: General Aviation post WTC
All:
This may not be appropriate for this forum, but perhaps some of our UK
friends
can help answer this question.
This morning the US secretary of transportation reopened the US air
system.
Commercial and Cargo flights are resuming. However, General Aviation is
still
grounded, and there will be further info on its status later today.
I thought briefly about this and realized that a good fraction of General
Aviation,
particularly sport pilots, operate largely outside of the Air Traffic
Control System.
VFR pilots are not even
required to file a flight plan. In the aftermath of the WTC/Pentagon
attack,
it would seem prudent that only those flights that can be positively
tracked by ATC
will be allowed. For now, this is of course appropriate, but as we look
farther into the future,
I wonder if the era of largely uncontrolled sport flying in the US may be
over. At
least some form of prior notification could be required for all aircraft
operation, and
significant improvements to the aircraft tracking system - notably
advanced datalink
transponders - may become required equipment on all aircraft. One could
speculate
wildly. A positive outcome may be that the FAA finally gets the funding
and directives
it needs to modernize the ATC system.
I then remembered that on the Continent, at least, sport aviation operates
in a much
more controlled environment. There is very little uncontrolled airspace
and flight plans
are de rigeur. Are my recollections accurate?
Again, my apologies for a tangential topic.
Shaun
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