Recent events have gotten me thinking, and I’ve got to say I’m a little put out with this whole Presidential visit TFR thing. Especially since I receive a notice in my email inbox nearly every week. The problem, and source of my complaint, the notices never pop up more than 1 day ahead of time. At first I wondered why they weren’t sending them, then I realized the Secret Service doesn’t issue them until the last possible minute. I’ll withhold any assessments of their security strategies, but I think it’s pretty ridiculous that they issue these TFRs at the last possible minute.
Take the situation from the following video for example:
I ‘m well aware of proper flight planning and I acknowledge that the float plane pilot should have known about the TFR, but do we really have to wait so long to issue them? Does it really bolster security? Honestly, 9 times out of 10 the trips are all over the mainstream media well in advance of the TFRs.
I’ll end this little tirade here, but I would like to leave you with one more marginally-related question. Don’t you think more sonic booms more often would be in the public’s interest? I do. I mean a wayward Cessna 180 on floats and a couple of F-15s took down an entire city’s 911 system. That can’t be good.
I’m more surprised that aircraft are not on patrol during the TFRs… they have to launch from the field instead.
They couldn’t even catch a Cessna 180 on floats going supersonic. If was a real threat, I would imagine it would come from something faster than a 180.
That’s a good point, although I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that we’ve witnessed a test flight of the world’s fastest Cessna 180.