Hypothetical situation - accidentally busting restricted airspace

Used to be you didn't worry about it unless you got a call, and chances of that were pretty slim. Just another VFR airplane. ADSB changed all that of course. More joy.
 
I know of a case where a witless VFR pilot unknowingly and stupidly wandered due south, and blew through 20 NM of the Knoxville, TN Class C just east of the inner ring. Noticing the error of his ways, he dove for the 3500 MSL shelf and immediately exited the airspace. A NASA ASRS was filed that evening. Nary a peep was heard from the authorities.
 
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Domenick said:
I know of a case where a witless VFR pilot unknowingly and stupidly wandered due south, and blew through 20 NM of the Knoxville, TN Class C just east of the inner ring. Noticing the error of his ways, he dove for the 3500 MSL shelf and immediately exited the airspace. A NASA ASRS was filed that evening. Nary a peep was heard from the authorities.
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I've heard several times now, pilots busting the Boston bravo getting a relatively stern talking to along with had there been a separation issue I would have to give you a number. They are very good there, I heard another guy, on flight following, who was clueless. The controller was very busy, but kept a close eye on him and kept him from busting the bravo. The guy could not fly a heading, which he asked for several times. The controller eventually got him positioned so he could see the airport he was trying to land at and sent him on his way.
 
WannFly said:
Does foreflight have warning for type of airspace ahead? I know garmin pilot does. Something else to add to your arsenal.
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Pretty new to Foreflight. I know Garmin Pilot does (has to be turned on in menu). I thought Foreflight did but looking at it, it doesn't appear so. Lack of warning in one's navigation program isn't an excuse for busting SUA, of course.
 
MacFly said:
Pretty new to Foreflight. I know Garmin Pilot does (has to be turned on in menu). I thought Foreflight did but looking at it, it doesn't appear so. Lack of warning in one's navigation program isn't an excuse for busting SUA, of course.
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Ha! FF does not even have a built in timer function. One of their biggest "brags" with the recent release was that you could set up multi-window tasking and run a separate timer app (taking up no less than 1/3 of the screen) if you were really silly enough to need a timer while flying... :rolleyes:
 
dmspilot said:
The active times of restricted areas are published on the chart; or, as also published on the chart, some may be designated active by NOTAM. What would be the point of distinguishing between an inactive and active restricted area if you need permission either way? When onIe is inactive, there is no restriction, so it might as well not exist.

14 CFR Part 73 Subpart B – Restricted Areas.
§73.13 No person may operate an aircraft within a restricted area between the designated altitudes and during the time of designation, unless he has the advance permission of (a) The using agency described in §73.15; or (b) The controlling agency described in §73.17.
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Thanks for schooling me on this :eek:

For some reason I thought they were always off limits unless you were given special permission. The (very few) times I have tried to transition they have been active. Never even thought there'd be a time you could just fly right over NORDO and not break a rule.

To learn more I just looked at NOTAM's along the route and see that one of them is actually open after 5pm or something like that. Either way I would use flight following at a minimum to be sure.

Using Garmin Pilot isn't very helpful - at least on the simple airspace view from the Map. It just lists the altitudes. I find that weird since it just pulled the brief but I suppose they aren't processing and decoding all the SUA NOTAM's to add the times. I know there is also a special airspaces warning on GP but I don't have the tablet handy to try it out.

I was wondering if foreflight did a better job here (specific times and warnings).
 
If "this guy" loses his ticket I saw this movie once where this government agency was hiring pilots in Laos for this outfit called Air America. Maybe he can go there and fly. They are always looking for hot shot pilots. :)

I would use flight following but in the 172 no transponder (I realize you can get it sometimes) and in the Champ well no nothing.
 
Sinistar said:
Thanks for schooling me on this :eek:

For some reason I thought they were always off limits unless you were given special permission. The (very few) times I have tried to transition they have been active. Never even thought there'd be a time you could just fly right over NORDO and not break a rule.

To learn more I just looked at NOTAM's along the route and see that one of them is actually open after 5pm or something like that. Either way I would use flight following at a minimum to be sure.

Using Garmin Pilot isn't very helpful - at least on the simple airspace view from the Map. It just lists the altitudes. I find that weird since it just pulled the brief but I suppose they aren't processing and decoding all the SUA NOTAM's to add the times. I know there is also a special airspaces warning on GP but I don't have the tablet handy to try it out.

I was wondering if foreflight did a better job here (specific times and warnings).
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But the state of the activity within still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a 71.13 violation. If you fly thru during the times of operation and within the altitudes given, it’s a violation plain and simple.

In the OP’s hypothetical situation, if indeed absolutely nothing was going on because of the range status, then there’s a good chance that they (user) and ATC (controlling agency) won’t care enough to do a PD.
 
Velocity173 said:
But the state of the activity within still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a 71.13 violation. If you fly thru during the times of operation and within the altitudes given, it’s a violation plain and simple.
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Yup. Exactly. The area's restricted hours are 0730 to 2400. That's all that matters. No question that this would clearly be a violation even if the base had suspended all range activities while the National Guard's attentions were entirely directed at loading trucks to head on down to Minneapolis.


Velocity173 said:
In the OP’s hypothetical situation, if indeed absolutely nothing was going on because of the range status, then there’s a good chance that they (user) and ATC (controlling agency) won’t care enough to do a PD.
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Maybe. "My friend" hasn't heard anything yet nor have there been any inquiries directed to the FBO which owns the airplane (OTOH it's only been 48 hours) but between COVID and rioting, this is a weird time and I'm not sure the FSDO is even open and processing ATM.
 
Ahhh...the plane is rented. Since you weren't on a flight plan then if there is PD won't it go to the listed owner first since all they have to go on is the N-Number lookup and owner.

Quick...have your "friend" go pay the FBO counter girl to erase the rental records for that day.
 
It's been a little over a week, not a peep either to "the pilot-violator in question" or to the FBO, and nothing from NASA. Either they didn't notice, noticed and shrugged it off, or they're too busy right now with viruses and riots and will come back to it later.
 
Velocity173 said:
But the state of the activity within still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a 71.13 violation. If you fly thru during the times of operation and within the altitudes given, it’s a violation plain and simple.
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It's not active if it is outside the time of operation and not NOTAMed.
 
dmspilot said:
It's not active if it is outside the time of operation and not NOTAMed.
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Yeah, didn’t say it was active in that case.

I’ll make my point even clearer. I used to work our MOA when I did ATC. The MOA was NOTAMd for specific times during the day, twice a year. During times posted, there might very well be no participating aircraft in the MOA. Might even be for hours at a time. Still didn’t change the fact that it’s an active MOA and we were required to route IFR aircraft around it.
 
MacFly said:
It's been a little over a week, not a peep either to "the pilot-violator in question" or to the FBO, and nothing from NASA. Either they didn't notice, noticed and shrugged it off, or they're too busy right now with viruses and riots and will come back to it later.
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My PD took almost a month from "I have a number for you to call..." until the ASI called. That was for the MSP FSDO. But aviation was humming along at 125% of full power then. I would not fully dismiss it for at least 4weeks. In the meantime prepare a bit. How have you changed your ways. Log an hour with a CFI on the topic. If they call and you've done all that it will go much faster. And fortunately it's a rental plane. For me I had to bring in all AC logs which they reviewed, also in the name of compliance.

The odds are you never even get a call.
 
“My friend” heard back from NASA with a thank-you note and another assurance of anonymity, but nothing from the FAA, and the FBO that rented the plane hasn’t heard anything either. He concludes that the FAA didn’t notice, didn’t care, or had bigger fish to fry. It was a good lesson. I do note, now, that if one uses the Aeronautical Chart overlay as part of the Foreflight map choice and turn highlighting on in Settings, it brightly highlights all special use airspace if your planned route takes you within a mile laterally or 1000 ft above it. That’s an interesting feature, and kind of helpful.
 
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We'd get people busting R-4001 all the time when I worked at APG. We'd have to stop operations a few times. We even had people land at PAAF without clearance even though it's military only and has a control tower. I remember the aeroclub sold one hapless student pilot who landed there some fuel after she called her instructor and fessed up.
 
Restricted airspace is not always active and may not pertain to your altitude. With flight following, you may be cleared to cross restricted airspace. I was cleared once to cross restricted airspace on a trip to Tangier Island even when the restricted airspace was active. I recall ATC calling out the F-14s as traffic.
 
kshaw said:
Restricted airspace is not always active and may not pertain to your altitude. With flight following, you may be cleared to cross restricted airspace. I was cleared once to cross restricted airspace on a trip to Tangier Island even when the restricted airspace was active. I recall ATC calling out the F-14s as traffic.
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Thanks, I'm aware. As was discussed earlier in the thread, the area was published as active, but there was no actual activity going on (not that that matters to the FAA). Had it been necessary to transit that RA and had the pilot not been out to lunch, ATC could have been called for clearance, but I'm told that they rarely grant it for this area. Had this been a longer flight, Flight Following would have been requested and they would have (probably) warned of the restricted area, but they weren't part of the process in this case. Anyway, all's well that ends well, and we should all learn from our screwups.
 
kshaw said:
Restricted airspace is not always active and may not pertain to your altitude. With flight following, you may be cleared to cross restricted airspace. I was cleared once to cross restricted airspace on a trip to Tangier Island even when the restricted airspace was active. I recall ATC calling out the F-14s as traffic.
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Been there, done that. My other fun one was we were down at Southport NC for a Navion convention. We wanted to fly up to Kitty Hawk, so my wife called the Marines on the phone that morning and we arranged a transit. The controller we were referred to had me identify two of his waypoints on my sectional which were the call up points (Point Lima and Mike). We briefed the other pilots as to the procedure and we had a dozen or so briefed.

This was all fine, I was the lead ship. As we're going through Wilmington's airspace, that controller says "The R area is hot", I told him we had prearranged a transit. I called the Marine controller and were authorized to pass. The second Navion was about a mile behind me and he called in. So far so good. The controller then asked him to turn out over the water a bit as he had to get firing stopped. This made me nervous and asked if he wanted the same of me (oops, yes please). A minute later we were on our way and there were no more hiccups after that. Some of our guys didn't want to go through the R-area prearranged or not so they went around. We did manage to get 18 Navions stuffed in the ramp at first flight (if you've been there, you know it really holds about twelve planes normally. We did have to arrange it so the one 172 that was already parked there to be able to get out.
 
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