Fighter jets scrambled over DC

Not the first, won’t be the last.
 
mighty_cessna_150.jpg
 
Sounds like someone is going to have a BAD day.
 
Typical insane response. Let's run around outside over a light aircraft. Even if it were hostile, probably better to stay inside away from the windows. At least the SS told the White House guys to stay inside.
 
steingar said:
mighty_cessna_150.jpg
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We have a very large version of that at College Park Airport, in the pilots briefing area. Interceptions used to be a monthly event, now, not so much, as the FAA personnel caution flight plan filers that the need to have a clearance to fly in. The first few years, the FAA guys and gals were oblivious to the restrictions, and accepted flight plans to the inner airports routinely.

Nothing funnier than a couple of F 16's trying to fly alongside a C 150 and give him hand signals to follow them to the designated landing field.

NOT POLITICAL, HAPPENS REGARDLESS OF WHO IS PRESIDENT.

Returning from a lunch hamburger at Easton, we were held outside the defense perimeter until a single engine Cessna was successfully intercepted, then ordered to fly to Fort Meade, land, and wait for a TSA officer to drive down from BWI to search the plane, pilot (Me) my wife, to be sure we were not part of a conspiracy to attack Washington in our Cessna 172. Fortunately, in accordance with my learn from experience practice, I had emptied my pockets of a pen knife and my wife's pocket book of her nail file, so nothing was seized. The TSA lady gave me a secret 4 digit number which allowed me to file a flight plan from FME to CGS , but refused me permission to use her government cell phone to file that plan. "It is a Government phone, that would be private use"! Long walk to the FBO, file the plan, and fly 0.2 TT to home base.

Total TT, 0.9, total elapsed time, over 2 hours.

These intercepts are mostly a joke. The poor jokers who fly into CGS with their home built to visit the College Park Aviation Museum get on the ground before the jets get airborne, so they circle overhead until the police arrive to take the guy in custody.

When the whole thing is done, the local pilots find someone qualified to fly whatever the visitor flew in, and fly him out, or if a single seater, fly the plane out, and give him a ride to where his plane is, so he can go home. The license suspension is not immediate, but he is not authorized to fly inside the perimeter.
 
Better to scramble Apache helicopters perhaps.
 
Don't remember Frank. I do remember some teenager who flew from Germany and landed at the Kremlin. Who know we didn't need to spend all the billions on national defense when all we needed were 100 or so Cessnas.
 
Apparently only an SFRA bogey. Never got into the FRZ.
 
Yep, it was literally nothing. Tells you how rare these things are these days; back in the early aughts these penetrations happened on a daily basis.
 
I wonder what the difference would be, on radar, between birds and a flock of drones, like in the movie, Angel Has Fallen.
 
It was probably just a fleet of B-17s being ferried from the mainland....Oh wait, that was last century. ;)
 
Think of the police at the capitol grounds. Every week they have got to stop or maybe arrest some nut. And most of them are going to be harmless, just nuts, and the cops are not supposed to shoot some non violent person. I think that's a hard job and they do a pretty good job of it.
So what is the answer today, was it birds or did a plane actually fly into the redistricted zone?
 
How often does this actually happen, though? I can't imagine it's a particularly rare event, even though I imagine nearly all are simple mistakes.
 
WDD said:
Better to scramble Apache helicopters perhaps.
Click to expand...

In the past they’ve used CG and CBP helos. Probably a lot better for visual ID of low, slow moving targets. I imagine cheaper as well.
 
Sending F-16's after Cessna 152 always reminds me of the Simpson's "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming" episode when he makes his getaway in the Wright Flyer (The Smithsonian's gonna have my ass on a platter), where they chase after him with the F-16s and the pilots then give up and run along behind it trying to grab it.

"Bogie's airspeed not sufficient for intercept. Suggest we get out and walk."
 
Geese from Canada, without a flight plan and special code to file through the restricted airspace.

Squaking, but not talking.
 
F-16s can hang on pretty slow; I was acting as an intercept target at night, about 60 - 70 miles off the coast of NJ (Atlantic City) in a 172; it included a bunch of different tactics, including a bump, and flare deployments, etc. But on the "standard" intercept one of them was able to hang on my left wing at 172 cruise speed for a good bit. I kept throttling back, gradually slowing, and he finally had to fall off. On one bump I called "guns guns guns" when he popped up from underneath and climbed up in front of me, lighting his burner. We didn't have direct comms with them then - VHF versus UHF, so it was just for my amusement, and the controlling agency.
 
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