TFR Asheville

I just received a notification from my flight school that there will be a TFR over Asheville this weekend.  Apparently, POTUS and crew are coming to stay at the Grove Park Inn.  This interests me somewhat, because if I had decided to fly to Asheville this weekend, I would be rescheduling.  This is the first time a TFR has ever come close to being a factor; and, while it has no direct bearing on my local flying, it wouldn’t take much to reach the furthest reaches of the outer rings.

This has become somewhat of a training exercise to me since I decided the most useful thing is to look into how this would actually play into my flying if I were going to fly near Asheville.  From the graphic, it appears that the best pass through the mountains would funnel you directly into the 10 nm TFR ring.  That would be really bad.  So that leaves up, over the mountains and around the TFR.  That would make for a long flight.

Incidentally, the TFR coupled with the mountains means that a serious look at density altitude is in order.  It’s bad form to find out that the mountains are going to be problematic when you are already in them.  With spring temperatures and peaks less than 7000 feet, I don’t think it would come to that, but it’s best to consider every eventuality.

For the purposes of the exercise I considered the two areas as if they were one large area.  It made it simpler to deal with and would keep me from venturing out to slip by and busting the inner ring.  I figure where these things are concerned it is best just to go around altogether.

So, for now enjoy your weekend Mr. President, you won’t catch me anywhere near the place.