Rusty

[orange]

I flew today for the first time since April 2nd. That's 9 weeks. My longest time between flights since I started flying in 2013.

The take off and most of the flight were good, but the approach and landing were pretty bad. I could blame the wind which was 11 gusting to 20, 40-70 degrees off the runway. But I don't usually have much trouble with wind.

I think that I was just rusty.

On a side note... I got bad info a 800-WXBRIEF briefer this morning. I was looking to go from FRG to the Hudson Exclusion and back. The briefer told me that I can't go west of FRG at all due to Presidential TFR, but after I got to the school, we verified that the TFR today went from NJ to the edge of lower Manhattan and down to the Verrezano. Friday and Sunday (arrival and departure from Newark), the TFR is a 30 miler up to FRG. In the end, while I could not go all the way to the Hudson, I could have gone up to and under JFK Bravo. I didn't want to bother with the Bravo so we flew up to Jones Beach and the back further east past Islip.

Bottom line, they make mistakes too, so verify what they tell you. I think he may have been looking at the Friday and Sunday one, not Saturday. So my question is... lets say there WAS a TFR all the way to FRG and the briefer told me that it was clear. And I busted the TFR, can I use the excuse that he told me so. Do they record the briefing?

 

[AWACSEng]

Yes, the briefings are recorded. No, you can't use the excuse "he told me I could". It's PIC responsibility to familiarize yourself with all aspects of the flight, to include reading the NOTAMS/TFRs for your route. If there is a discrepancy between the written text and what the briefer tells you, I would bet the guys in the black helicopters will not care that the briefer told you you could be there. YMMV.

 

[flyingron]

I'll somewhat disagree. FSS is THE official source for such NOTAMS. Even the FAA TFR/SUA sites disclaim them being official.

During the 2012 DNC we had a big TFR over CLT (Obama was speaking). One of my neighbors got a briefing early and knew about the TFR. Just before he went out to preflight the plane he called again to specifically confirm the TFR start time. He flies a plane with a radial engine so it takes him a bit to get in the air. Seven minutes after he called, the SS move the TFR up. His first indication something was wrong was when is portable Garmin with XM weather started giving all sorts of alerts. He, fortunately, decided that something may have screwed up and exited the TFR area immediately. By the time he got to his destination, they were looking for him on the ground.

The airport manager phone number rings my cell phone (and a few others, we don't really have a 'manager' on our residential airpark). It was Homeland Security wanting to know who just took off. I told them I wasn't on field but I could find out. They said there was no problem, they were tracking him, but they would call back if he turned back to my field.

Upon landing they knew just exactly what color and general airplane description. After talking to Homeland Security they cleared him of any issues. Of course, a month later the FAA decided to launch their own investigation and rather roughly raked him over the coals before finally clearing him.

 

[Cajun_Flyer]

Great to hear you knocked the rust off... sounds like it went well! I feel your pain and am hoping to knock some of my own rust off soon too. It's been since late April for me All my May flights got cancelled due to the fact that it pretty much rained every day that month and my schedule has been incredibly busy since. Things are finally slowing back down, though. We need another meet up this summer!

 

[orange]

Yeah, May was a ****ty weather month.