…FSS, ATC Both Involved…

At Hyde Field, manager Stan Fetter said no unauthorized flights have actually made it into his airport but it’s not for lack of trying. Fetter said he gets at least a dozen calls a week from people asking for information about fuel availability and the like and he has to politely remind them that his facility is off limits to them. “At least one or two a week will say something like, ‘Gee, I just got off the phone with flight service, had a 20-minute briefing and filed a flight plan in there, and they didn’t say a thing about that,'” Fetter told AVweb. Fetter stressed that it’s always the pilot’s responsibility to ensure he or she follows the rules, but the FAA also has a role to play in preventing airspace violations. It can’t help that charts do not plot the ADIZ because of its “temporary” nature. AVweb is not aware of any date set to add the ADIZ to the charts, nor are we aware of any timeline to remove the “temporary” DC ADIZ. “While it is certainly the pilot’s responsibility to get this information, it’s a little tough when the people who are in charge leave critical items out, accept flight plans that violate the FRZ, and then ATC sends them merrily on their way even though the required authorizations are not there.” Fetter said pilots and aircraft authorized to use the DC-3 are easily recognizable by their unique flight-planning requirements and transponder codes but he said the FAA and TSA simply haven’t supplied the manpower and equipment necessary to administer the system effectively. “The FRZ is an administrative nightmare that causes more trouble than it’s worth and creates far more problems than it solves,” he said. “They created this monster, didn’t provide even the minimum resources to implement it, and now they wonder why it doesn’t work.”