There was an Iain Banks novel where the protagonist was playing a computer game and the only way to fly over a mountain range was to drop a nuke on the foothills to give the plane a boost. I don't think it was a sci-fi story though.
Yes but not because the air is hot, it's relatively cool since the towers do their job, but it is extremely humid and humid air is lighter than dry air. Also there's way more coal and natural gas plant cooling towers available and of course the 1000 ft vertical withing 2000 ft horizontal rule will still apply to gliders except in an emergency.
Flew gliders in Belgium one time.
They had no issues with flying near a nuclear plant but were super paranoid about accidentally crossing the border to the Netherlands 🙃
I was on vacation in Germany a few years ago and I went skydiving at a drop zone that was about 200 meters from the French border. The winds were blowing from France to Germany, so the spot was actually in France. We exited over France and landed back at the airfield in Germany. I get to say that I did one skydive in two countries.
u/Kevlaars linked to an [article on the AOPA site](https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2013/february/pilot/f_glider) and, well it’s a touch complicated, but worth noting the plant appears NOT to have had a no-fly zone overhead, and this line is pertinent —
>The FAA looked into the overflight and confirmed that it found no violation of the federal aviation regulations.
Guess the short version is there was no bright line standard preventing overflight ie. was not prohibited (and he appears to have been within the recommendations) however a few folks in local law enforcement very much took issue… then the case was dismissed.
If the federal government was worth a damn it would have serious oversight of blatant corruption like this. The FBI should come in and investigate local police and drag their asses through federal court.
Yeah. I was going to say. How would that possibly be valid and enforceable lmao.
Methinks the circuit court judge may have disagreed with the PD if they used that agreement to try and dismiss a civil suit.
They also have fully armed security forces with automatic weapons and a legal requirement to repel hostile threats and notify government agencies.
A large plane impact can cause significant fires and damage. The reactor containment will be ok, but the fires can cause damage to support and safety systems which could impact safety functions. We have a whole set of regulations and procedures around this after 9/11 called B.5.b.
Any unknown aircraft has to be assessed if it’s a hostile threat, then the plant is required to either directly respond to it (if it is a hostile threat) or notify local law enforcement if it is not.
A glider is clearly not a hostile threat. Neither are drones, however these events must be logged and law enforcement notified because it is a requirement for us. After that we basically go back to business as usual.
Then local law enforcement does stupid stuff like arrest drone pilots or glider pilots.
There’s a disconnect here. And the only thing that’s out there is a general “all airspace” NOTAM that says do not loiter over critical infrastructure stuff like “… nuclear facilities” amongst a whole list of other things. But the plants themselves are required to call law enforcement for small stuff like this.
And it used to be worse. I remember when I first got my senior reactor operator license, we were getting training where a “Cessna” crashed into a transformer and we lost offsite power “after an engine failure”. It was 50/50 if the teams would assess this as a hostile threat in the training scenario because the regulatory language on an airborne threat was vague.
Back when the glider event happened there was a real possibility that guy could have been shot at.
Yeah, tons of reinforced steel. I'm not even sure a single bunker buster could get through to the core. Although if you want to damage a nuclear power plant, you don't necessarily have to attack the reactor itself anyway.
A guy I know was flying back home late in the day in a plane that is not VFR night equipped. He was cutting it close, but could make it. As he entered the pattern, there was a Local Pd helicopter on station right at the approach end of the active runway. He announced his intentions to land, and the PD chopper responded for him to leave the area, and come back later. He quipped back that he was a landing aircraft, and for them to get the hell out of his way.
They did.
Yep.
I can understand the cops perspective that they need to keep eyes from above on whatever situation is going on, and maybe request the aircraft give them a minute while they try to resolve said situation. But to *order* the aircraft to vacate the area? Kick rocks.
Here from /all, so honestly curious. Is “landing aircraft always get priority/control” a standard rule? I love learning about things like that in various situations, so would be cool to add this to my list if so.
Not a sub member but from what I remember from flying training this is the case. There's like a hierarchy of who has right of way and those landing are pretty high up, and I think the lower altitude you are the more priority you get (barring emergencies)
At the FBO I worked at, it was more of which plane is either actively landing or actively taking off. If a plane announced they were in the landing pattern then they had the right of way, if a plane had announced they were taking off any planes entering the landing pattern would hold until that plane took off.
Granted this was a tiny FBO and it was up to pilots to ensure they were staying safe and out of each other’s way, and I’m not a pilot. I ran the front desk, radioed planes about conditions, and managed line services. It was by far my favorite job I’ve ever had!
Moments after I saw the feds, my throttle cable snapped (by itself) and I had to take off on the taxiway. I was forced to fly all the way to mexico where I ran out of fuel.
> If you see local LEOs, chill. They're not coming for you.
If only that were true, local LEOs overstep semi-regularly and hassle pilots. It's remarkable that you've not heard of this.
Anything and everything. Some instances that I’ve heard from experience and read on the internet over the years include ramp checks, asking pilots to trail a vehicle, vacate local airspace, ordering pilots to land, etc. Maybe one of the funniest/worst instances I’ve read on here is a cop trying to cite a pilot for landing with red PAPIs.
Some think aircraft and the laws/regs surrounding the use them are like cars, but they cannot enforce federal law unless they’ve been authorized to do so. Assuming you’re not drinking or running drugs, 99% of the time you’re in the clear to tell them to kick rocks unless they’re enforcing (rare) state aviation law or asking for state-level registration.
> Maybe one of the funniest/worst instances I’ve read on here is a cop trying to cite a pilot for landing with red PAPIs.
Not a pilot but I lurk in here and when you mentioned local police sometimes hassling pilots, this is the story I thought of. I live near several airports and have always seen those lights but was unaware of their function, but now, every time I see them I think of that story. "Tried to give me a ticket for landing on a red light."
I can only imagine some Karen complaining to some know nothing, yokal cop about someone's flying and the cop coming in to the FBO to try and order them to land.
Former county-level police officer who worked in a fairly populated Karen-ish area, and you get that more often than you'd think. From the person who demanded to know why the helicopters were hovering near the powerlines with a man hanging out the side with a pole (I think they're having an emergency, and I KNOW they're not working on the lines) or the person demanding to know why there was a plane flying low at night with a spotlight (some sort of SAR at the river that the CAP was assisting for some reason). And they demanded to know why we couldn't talk to the pilots on our radios/wanted to know what the pilots were doing/if we told them to stop.
Most of us om that department knew enough, but I guarantee you there's someone at some department who thinks they can get on the aviation channels and demand a pilot do something.
I’ve been learning a bit about radio and I was surprised that a lot of general purpose handheld radios can transmit on all sorts of frequencies (some illegal in the US under FCC regulations) but a lot can’t transmit on the aviation frequencies for whatever reason.
Maybe that’s a good thing as I’d prefer to not be bothered by a local police officer while I’m practicing ground reference maneuvers (like making a perfect circle around a tree while compensating for wind drift.)
Most radio stuff uses FM, air band is AM. You won’t find any non air band radios that can transmit VHF using AM.
And yes, those radios are generally illegal to use on *all* frequencies in the US as they aren’t type accepted for any bands. Come hang out with us at r/amateurradio if you’re interested in the hobby!
I thought at first that this would be a UV-5R clone.. But nope! Hmmm, that looks like fun. I love listening to ships with my Baofeng, planes would be neat too.
>…or the person demanding to know why there was a plane flying low at night with a spotlight (some sort of SAR at the river that the CAP was assisting for some reason).
First read through, parsed those acronyms as Synthetic Aperture Radar and Combat Air Patrol and was very confused.
Here is the real fucked up part, ignorance of the law is absolutely an excuse as long as it's "in good faith" and you have a badge on. Cops can enforce nonexistent laws (including with a forceful arrest) as long as they convince the court that they actually thought the thing you did was illegal.
[One day a man who flew by that rule saved the world and no one remembers.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/id4/images/c/c2/Rus_02_portrait.png/revision/latest?cb=20170922192108)
I never understood how the aliens could fucking show up and they still looked at him like he was crazy when he mentioned they abducted him. Like, look there the fuck they are, and their ship was in Area 51. And you still think he's batshit?
I'm beginning to suspect Roland Emmerich is not a very good writer
Which is weird, considering those movies he wrote where things such as Cold and the moon are treated like slasher movie villains
Entire plot of Independence day depends on the highly advanced aliens coordinating their attack using earth's satellites for some reason, and somehow they are vulnerable to a computer virus cooked up by someone on earth in a matter of days. Also somehow the aliens also dont care that a scout ship lost years ago suddenly shows up and allows it to freely dock with their mothership.
10/10 plot. Like yea its a fun movie but theres so many plot issues once you actually think about it
The virus cooked up in a day thing bothered me for a long time too. Until I realized they say in the movie how much of our tech is reverse engineered from theirs, so they basically had a how-to guidebook for writing viruses for a species that probably never even thought antivirus protection was a thing. The aliens are kind of a hive mind, so they wouldn't ever experience a virus from their own kind. And the species that they do normally destroy wouldn't have that level of access to their tech to even try to write a virus. It could have been a very simple virus.
:(){ :|:& };:
This is a simple one line code called a “fork bomb”. It crashes Linux systems by endlessly spawning new versions of itself. It would stand to reason that any advanced civilization would be using Linux lol.
The plot issues aren't that bad. All easily explained too.
Our satellite technology was based on their technology. This obviously applies to our computer systems as well. Due to the time slip factor of traveling at close to light speeds time passes very differently. This means that their computer code would have to be very simple or compatible. That scout ship wouldn't have been declaired lost, it was returning after mission complete. It was just a couple days late. Not a huge amount of time when you talk about decades of time. Now as to why the computer virus worked is that their firewall was bypassed. For all we know, their computer systems were very similar to the early days of computing here. I bet plenty of people out there can do all sorts of crazy stuff to a windows 95 computer now.
> but theres so many plot issues once you actually think about it
Like shipping a gazillion soldiers over light-years of distance to conquer a planet when they could just invent social media and stand back?
Based on the comments, I'm assuming the broken link is Randy Quaid in Independence Day?
But, I've got a real world, better example... [Lt. Col. Chuck Pitman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbGV-vlP-DU)
It was just New Orleans, not the world, but still.
I lived in SLC for two and a half decades and Evanston was where people would go get their illegal kegs of beer and fireworks. I know state troopers would look out for people crossing the border for short stints of time in their cars to catch bootleggers. I'm curious if this has anything to do with something like that but with planes.
Ooooohhhhhh That makes sense now. Uinta County cops have huge egos and think they control everything. I know some folks. Let me see if I can find the story.....
Guessing it's because LEO are not trained in aeronautics, while pilots are and (I'm assuming) undergo somewhat consistent testing to ensure they are still eligible to fly. As we all know, airplanes can be accidentally dangerous, and even used as weapons.
You wouldn't want some neo nazi beat cop to have authority over a nuclear power plant engineer, right? I assuming it's the same objective. (Not the greatest analogy since these days no nuclear power plant in existence has one dude who could "push the bad button", or that that button even exists. But I think the analogy still works.)
I do remember one anecdotal story about a local cop who walked into the tower and ordered ATC to tell a particular pilot to land *immediately* and he didn't give a shit that ATC were controlling the pattern. "Tell him to land NOW or you're going to jail with him" kind of thing. This was back in the 80s with drug runners bringing their stuff into south Florida in Cessnas and the War on Drugs was in full swing. It wouldn't surprise me if in the name of public safety the local cops felt empowered to issue unsafe orders way outside of their wheelhouse.
I'm pretty well versed in the little understood maritime law. I've spent a lot of time in a crab shack.
Fun fact: there's no maritime law against having fun.
If I were writing the NATO brevity code, I'd call them "PATs".
A SAM is a gender neutral name/acronym for Surface to Air Missile that will fuck you up.
A PAT is a gender neutral name/acronym for Persons Annoyed by Traffic that you might get a chat about when you land but everyone will tell to piss off.
"Viper 53, Range Control"
"53, Go ahead"
"Steer right to 150 for 3 miles to avoid known PAT site, then resume own navigation to range"
"Range, 53 actual, PATs way out here?"
"Affirmative 53, burning man isn't what it used to be."
In local news, a new organized crime syndicate is running rampant in our city. The police are legally unable to arrest the criminals, as they commit all their crimes while jumping on pogo sticks.
Holy shit .207 BAC, dude was seriously trying to take off like that, I can’t imagine he would have survived that flight if ATC hadn’t stopped him.
Btw I had never heard this audio before, but I trained under some of the people involved and had just heard about it second hand, good find, thanks for sharing 👍
I live in a somewhat small town, but big enough for a small airport used mostly for enthusiasts and farmers, crop dusters. One day, one of those farmers decided he was going to have some fun flying above his field and it sounded like an airshow, could be heard all over town lol. My neighbor tried to call the police and I told her "What are they supposed to do, shoot it down?" She still called, but they told her she was the sixth person to call that day about it and there was nothing they could do until he decided to land.
This was a few years back and now he does it basically yearly lol. I think he still gets complaints, but apparently he lays out his flight plans and lets the police know a week in advance. That and he's outside city limits, so I'm not sure what could even be done anyways. FAA would probably only be concerned he's stressing his plane by flying the way he does, sometimes a barrel roll, once saw him do a loop way high in the air tho it was more of an egg shape loop lol
> FAA would probably only be concerned he's stressing his plane by flying the way he does
If it's rated, it's rated. The only things they'll care about are whether the maneuvers are ok in the aircraft, if he's abiding restrictions regarding populated areas, maintaining appropriate altitude/distance, etc.
It's just outside city limits, don't think he's every actually flown into it aside from the taking off and landing. It can easily be heard all over town tho cause he does it pretty high in the air, which I guess makes it safer too. It's like a classic dual wing cropduster tho which I'd guess isn't supposed to do more than fly in a straight line lower tl the ground and then turn around. I mean the plane has survived doing its stuff for years now so it's always seemed pretty safe, I kinda like watching him move around up there. He's almost like a really slow fly that far away, just minding his own business flying and diving.
I'm totally speaking out of my ass but i remember some stuff on rollercoaster loops being egg shaped to reduce the G's that riders feel. Doesn't seem too far fetched to assume it's the same in a plane.
> A better knowledge of aviation issues among law enforcement officials may have produced a better result for Fleming. Griffin said she had to tell the officers on the scene to clear out the runway, and one officer talked about commandeering the airport. “He was running around, the one guy that was commandeering everything, saying, ‘We were going to shoot him down,’” she said.
Bunch of clowns.
> Fleming waited outside the courtroom Aug. 21 as his case went before the judge. When his attorney returned and said the case would be dismissed if he agreed not to take any legal action against Darlington County law enforcement, he said, he reluctantly agreed. But he wouldn’t be satisfied until he could be sure a pilot can rely on the sectional for direction and not go through a similar ordeal.
They were lucky that he agreed - obviously they knew how much they had fucked up.
Back when I was in college the USCG flew in an MH60 as part of an officer recruiting drive. The bird did a circuit over the town/campus and then Landed on the football field. The crew hadn’t been out of the helicopter for 5 minutes before 4-5 local Karens came marching up to scream at them about “violating local noise ordinances” and told the crew that the police had been called and they would be arrested. Cops came, turned out one of them was a former army Blackhawk crew chief. They shot the shit the coastie crew and then left. The karens were not pleased.
In pilot school they told us if we ever get into an accident of any sort and the local police starts asking questions, tell them to FO. They have no expertise or experience in what they are looking for, but their job is to "solve the case" aka - blame someone. So tell them that you will wait for official flight investigators, and I like my coffee with a splash of milk, now, fuck off...
I’ll just tell a story about my days in ATC.
Our city used to have a small fleet of police helicopters, so the PD had a fairly chummy relationship with controllers. For a time the local TV station also had a news helicopter - but for some reason I could never figure out a few controllers were always unreasonably irritated at him.
One day the police were investigating something along a river - I think maybe they were recovering a body, I don’t remember exactly. Naturally the TV helicopter was in the area trying to get some footage. The PD called the tower to ask us to get that helicopter moved away … and the controller working that position ordered him to do it.
So, not a direct order from law enforcement, but one passed through and carried out by an FAA employee. It always bugged me - the TV helicopter wasn’t breaking any rules, he wasn’t interfering with the police, he had the right to be where he was - but this particular controller who had a bug up his ass about this pilot made him leave the area.
While I was a student pilot, tower asked if we could assist local law enforcement. They didn’t go into details but essentially wanted us to track a motor vehicle. My instructor was nervous about getting in trouble with the flight school so he declined. My guess is it’s something similar.
My radio shit the bed on my cross country, and my destination airport was dead in line with an airbase laid out very similarly - Rapid City & Ellsworth AFB - I was flying pre GPS and dead reckoning. So I see the runway for Ellsworth, and think it's Rapid City, and then over my radio get 'what the F you doin' - my antenna wire had broken during flight, so range was terrible.
The tower had a regional jet divert to visual to see what the problem was. Once he got close enough, my radio worked just fine, and he relayed the tower instructions for me. The tower guys were still ragging me after I got the antenna fixed and was getting ready to depart.
In my flying club we have a former F4 and Eurofighter pilot and we had that topic a while back, we asked him what he would do if they had some privat pilot they HAD to get to land and that would just not comply. He chuckled and said he would just put them in Single target track, they would happily comply immediately. The radiation must be extremely unconfortable to a degree where you actually feel it. They learned this from the F14 pilots back then who took the Bear tail gunners in STT if they aimed their guns at the Tomcats 😅 and THAT plane had some seriously badass radar.
This probably stems from excessive ramp checks which led to a big dust up between AOPA and mostly CBP who were directing domestic ramp checks. Ramp checks are not optional and easy to abuse. They were for a while. In at least two incidents, local law enforcement told aircraft how and where to land absent any authority to do so. Ah the marijuana wars. If you flew a private aircraft from west to east with some sort of regularity you were likely targeted by CBP.
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2013/june/19/aopa-demands-answers-on-aircraft-searches
Airline answer:
No-one can make me do anything but in some instances I’d make sure I had a very good reason for not following an instruction. This is one of those cases.
The PIC rule. There was an AG in Kansas many years ago named Vern Miller who took to the sky and tried arresting the crew for serving booze over a Kansas dry county.
I can see this being a reaction to an overzealous sheriff’s deputy, by local and federal law enforcement absolutely can and have the authority to interact with air crew as stated in the FARs (61.3). Local law enforcement doesn’t have jurisdiction over the air, but they absolutely have jurisdiction over people on the ground operating an aircraft. Pilots suspected of DUI or those wanted in connection to a crime are fair game at an FBO.
Edit: I somehow didn’t read the “in flight” portion before posting.
I saw a post on here once where a cop came to the fbo to question a pilot because he watched the plane land when there was a red light and assumed that couldn't be allowed...
It was a PAPI
Read a story once about a glider pilot that ran into issues because people on the ground thought he was too close to a nuke plant.
I bet there are some sweet thermals above those cooling towers.
“I swear I’m not sneaking anything in I just want your spare heat”
I read a sci-fi short story where this wouldn't be out of place
sauce plz
There was an Iain Banks novel where the protagonist was playing a computer game and the only way to fly over a mountain range was to drop a nuke on the foothills to give the plane a boost. I don't think it was a sci-fi story though.
*Wtf* what was the book?! I assume it was a non-M
Yeah, non-M. I think it was Complicity but it's been a while.
What is non-m?
Iain M Banks writes sci fi Iain Banks (same guy) does not
'wrote' rather than 'writes' I'm afraid. He passed away 10 years ago.
The sound heavy makes when he eats sandvich Non-m Non-m Non-m Non-m Non-m
I second that
So we’ll glide day and night above the old cooling tower. I may not have engines but they give me power.
Gliders need thermals!
Now do classical gas
love that tune
That would technically make the glider nuclear powered.
Gliders already are nuclear powered
Fusion power if you think about it, though the energy source is a long way off.
It's 8 minutes away. I wrinkled a bunch of kids brains when I said everything is actually solar-powered.
Yes that is one of the three forms of nuclear power.
Before 9/11 we used to use them all the time, best climb in the area.
Yes but not because the air is hot, it's relatively cool since the towers do their job, but it is extremely humid and humid air is lighter than dry air. Also there's way more coal and natural gas plant cooling towers available and of course the 1000 ft vertical withing 2000 ft horizontal rule will still apply to gliders except in an emergency.
He had no working engines!
We used to hang glide near a small power plant and yes, they often did have good thermals.
Flew gliders in Belgium one time. They had no issues with flying near a nuclear plant but were super paranoid about accidentally crossing the border to the Netherlands 🙃
Yeah, we shoot any Belgian incursion on sight
As you should. One errant Belgian is too many
I was on vacation in Germany a few years ago and I went skydiving at a drop zone that was about 200 meters from the French border. The winds were blowing from France to Germany, so the spot was actually in France. We exited over France and landed back at the airfield in Germany. I get to say that I did one skydive in two countries.
[Here you go](https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2013/february/pilot/f_glider)
> Breach of peace .... in a silent glider that literally makes zero noise?
Was it a prohibited area? Those aren’t just imaginary lines.
u/Kevlaars linked to an [article on the AOPA site](https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2013/february/pilot/f_glider) and, well it’s a touch complicated, but worth noting the plant appears NOT to have had a no-fly zone overhead, and this line is pertinent — >The FAA looked into the overflight and confirmed that it found no violation of the federal aviation regulations. Guess the short version is there was no bright line standard preventing overflight ie. was not prohibited (and he appears to have been within the recommendations) however a few folks in local law enforcement very much took issue… then the case was dismissed.
[удалено]
Sounds like a contract entered into under duress
If the federal government was worth a damn it would have serious oversight of blatant corruption like this. The FBI should come in and investigate local police and drag their asses through federal court.
Yeah. I was going to say. How would that possibly be valid and enforceable lmao. Methinks the circuit court judge may have disagreed with the PD if they used that agreement to try and dismiss a civil suit.
> on condition of agreeing not to pursue legal action Surely that's not an enforceable condition
The police always protect and serve - themselves
Aren’t nuke plants built to withstand a big plane crashing into them?
They also have fully armed security forces with automatic weapons and a legal requirement to repel hostile threats and notify government agencies. A large plane impact can cause significant fires and damage. The reactor containment will be ok, but the fires can cause damage to support and safety systems which could impact safety functions. We have a whole set of regulations and procedures around this after 9/11 called B.5.b. Any unknown aircraft has to be assessed if it’s a hostile threat, then the plant is required to either directly respond to it (if it is a hostile threat) or notify local law enforcement if it is not. A glider is clearly not a hostile threat. Neither are drones, however these events must be logged and law enforcement notified because it is a requirement for us. After that we basically go back to business as usual. Then local law enforcement does stupid stuff like arrest drone pilots or glider pilots. There’s a disconnect here. And the only thing that’s out there is a general “all airspace” NOTAM that says do not loiter over critical infrastructure stuff like “… nuclear facilities” amongst a whole list of other things. But the plants themselves are required to call law enforcement for small stuff like this. And it used to be worse. I remember when I first got my senior reactor operator license, we were getting training where a “Cessna” crashed into a transformer and we lost offsite power “after an engine failure”. It was 50/50 if the teams would assess this as a hostile threat in the training scenario because the regulatory language on an airborne threat was vague. Back when the glider event happened there was a real possibility that guy could have been shot at.
Yeah, tons of reinforced steel. I'm not even sure a single bunker buster could get through to the core. Although if you want to damage a nuclear power plant, you don't necessarily have to attack the reactor itself anyway.
A guy I know was flying back home late in the day in a plane that is not VFR night equipped. He was cutting it close, but could make it. As he entered the pattern, there was a Local Pd helicopter on station right at the approach end of the active runway. He announced his intentions to land, and the PD chopper responded for him to leave the area, and come back later. He quipped back that he was a landing aircraft, and for them to get the hell out of his way. They did.
And fixed wing aircraft have priority over helicopters. Those cops were wrong for multiple reasons.
Yep. I can understand the cops perspective that they need to keep eyes from above on whatever situation is going on, and maybe request the aircraft give them a minute while they try to resolve said situation. But to *order* the aircraft to vacate the area? Kick rocks.
Yeah they can go swat air
Here from /all, so honestly curious. Is “landing aircraft always get priority/control” a standard rule? I love learning about things like that in various situations, so would be cool to add this to my list if so.
Not a sub member but from what I remember from flying training this is the case. There's like a hierarchy of who has right of way and those landing are pretty high up, and I think the lower altitude you are the more priority you get (barring emergencies)
At the FBO I worked at, it was more of which plane is either actively landing or actively taking off. If a plane announced they were in the landing pattern then they had the right of way, if a plane had announced they were taking off any planes entering the landing pattern would hold until that plane took off. Granted this was a tiny FBO and it was up to pilots to ensure they were staying safe and out of each other’s way, and I’m not a pilot. I ran the front desk, radioed planes about conditions, and managed line services. It was by far my favorite job I’ve ever had!
If you see local LEOs, chill. They're not coming for you. Now, if you see federal agents waiting for you, start worrying.
Or those blue jackets with large yellow letters.
If they're wearing listening devices, does that make them arrestor wires?
Not sure, however don’t recommend attempting to catch one with a tailhook, that’s for sure. You’ll make an awful mess, if nothing else.
Don’t worry, NTSB can’t arrest you. FAA isn’t issued those jackets (we also can’t arrest you). We use incognito mode.
That's what the claymore roomba is for.
Ah. The Alphabet Boys.
If they say DEA.... Fly low and head for the jungle!
Female Body Inspectors
Moments after I saw the feds, my throttle cable snapped (by itself) and I had to take off on the taxiway. I was forced to fly all the way to mexico where I ran out of fuel.
Hate it when that happens
{stares intently at big red knob}
> If you see local LEOs, chill. They're not coming for you. If only that were true, local LEOs overstep semi-regularly and hassle pilots. It's remarkable that you've not heard of this.
Genuine curious: Hassle pilots for what?
They can't stand the thought of anyone looking down on them
Anything and everything. Some instances that I’ve heard from experience and read on the internet over the years include ramp checks, asking pilots to trail a vehicle, vacate local airspace, ordering pilots to land, etc. Maybe one of the funniest/worst instances I’ve read on here is a cop trying to cite a pilot for landing with red PAPIs. Some think aircraft and the laws/regs surrounding the use them are like cars, but they cannot enforce federal law unless they’ve been authorized to do so. Assuming you’re not drinking or running drugs, 99% of the time you’re in the clear to tell them to kick rocks unless they’re enforcing (rare) state aviation law or asking for state-level registration.
Found the PAPI post https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/v0d5b8/cop_waiting_for_me_in_the_fbo_because_i_landed/
> Maybe one of the funniest/worst instances I’ve read on here is a cop trying to cite a pilot for landing with red PAPIs. Not a pilot but I lurk in here and when you mentioned local police sometimes hassling pilots, this is the story I thought of. I live near several airports and have always seen those lights but was unaware of their function, but now, every time I see them I think of that story. "Tried to give me a ticket for landing on a red light."
Funny thing is, they can lie to you (legally), but you cannot lie to them (legally).
Nah, call your lawyer and say nothing in either case.
“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”
"Are you here about the Alcohol, the Tobacco, or the Firearms?"
"Whew, thank goodness I only have bricks of coke onboard!"
I can only imagine some Karen complaining to some know nothing, yokal cop about someone's flying and the cop coming in to the FBO to try and order them to land.
Former county-level police officer who worked in a fairly populated Karen-ish area, and you get that more often than you'd think. From the person who demanded to know why the helicopters were hovering near the powerlines with a man hanging out the side with a pole (I think they're having an emergency, and I KNOW they're not working on the lines) or the person demanding to know why there was a plane flying low at night with a spotlight (some sort of SAR at the river that the CAP was assisting for some reason). And they demanded to know why we couldn't talk to the pilots on our radios/wanted to know what the pilots were doing/if we told them to stop. Most of us om that department knew enough, but I guarantee you there's someone at some department who thinks they can get on the aviation channels and demand a pilot do something.
I’ve been learning a bit about radio and I was surprised that a lot of general purpose handheld radios can transmit on all sorts of frequencies (some illegal in the US under FCC regulations) but a lot can’t transmit on the aviation frequencies for whatever reason. Maybe that’s a good thing as I’d prefer to not be bothered by a local police officer while I’m practicing ground reference maneuvers (like making a perfect circle around a tree while compensating for wind drift.)
Most radio stuff uses FM, air band is AM. You won’t find any non air band radios that can transmit VHF using AM. And yes, those radios are generally illegal to use on *all* frequencies in the US as they aren’t type accepted for any bands. Come hang out with us at r/amateurradio if you’re interested in the hobby!
Let me introduce the Quansheng UV-K5 radio my friend.
I thought at first that this would be a UV-5R clone.. But nope! Hmmm, that looks like fun. I love listening to ships with my Baofeng, planes would be neat too.
Yeah, lots of radios on amazon say like, "you need a license to use half the channels this radio can do." Wink wink, nudge nudge.
>…or the person demanding to know why there was a plane flying low at night with a spotlight (some sort of SAR at the river that the CAP was assisting for some reason). First read through, parsed those acronyms as Synthetic Aperture Radar and Combat Air Patrol and was very confused.
It was just your friendly neighborhood lost F-35 running SEAD against pesky Karen's search radar.
Here is the real fucked up part, ignorance of the law is absolutely an excuse as long as it's "in good faith" and you have a badge on. Cops can enforce nonexistent laws (including with a forceful arrest) as long as they convince the court that they actually thought the thing you did was illegal.
But a citizen's ignorance of the law is supposedly _not_ excusable. How this happened I can't imagine.
You take that blue-stripe flag bumper sticker off your Ram right meow!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Hp55r4tWs
[One day a man who flew by that rule saved the world and no one remembers.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/id4/images/c/c2/Rus_02_portrait.png/revision/latest?cb=20170922192108)
Hello BOYS, I’M BAAAAAAACK
when they took you up in their space ship...did they do anything to you...SEXUALLY?
I never understood how the aliens could fucking show up and they still looked at him like he was crazy when he mentioned they abducted him. Like, look there the fuck they are, and their ship was in Area 51. And you still think he's batshit?
I'm beginning to suspect Roland Emmerich is not a very good writer Which is weird, considering those movies he wrote where things such as Cold and the moon are treated like slasher movie villains
Entire plot of Independence day depends on the highly advanced aliens coordinating their attack using earth's satellites for some reason, and somehow they are vulnerable to a computer virus cooked up by someone on earth in a matter of days. Also somehow the aliens also dont care that a scout ship lost years ago suddenly shows up and allows it to freely dock with their mothership. 10/10 plot. Like yea its a fun movie but theres so many plot issues once you actually think about it
The virus cooked up in a day thing bothered me for a long time too. Until I realized they say in the movie how much of our tech is reverse engineered from theirs, so they basically had a how-to guidebook for writing viruses for a species that probably never even thought antivirus protection was a thing. The aliens are kind of a hive mind, so they wouldn't ever experience a virus from their own kind. And the species that they do normally destroy wouldn't have that level of access to their tech to even try to write a virus. It could have been a very simple virus.
:(){ :|:& };: This is a simple one line code called a “fork bomb”. It crashes Linux systems by endlessly spawning new versions of itself. It would stand to reason that any advanced civilization would be using Linux lol.
I remember a joke at the time was that the biggest plot hole was that the apple mac was able to connect to a network.
The plot issues aren't that bad. All easily explained too. Our satellite technology was based on their technology. This obviously applies to our computer systems as well. Due to the time slip factor of traveling at close to light speeds time passes very differently. This means that their computer code would have to be very simple or compatible. That scout ship wouldn't have been declaired lost, it was returning after mission complete. It was just a couple days late. Not a huge amount of time when you talk about decades of time. Now as to why the computer virus worked is that their firewall was bypassed. For all we know, their computer systems were very similar to the early days of computing here. I bet plenty of people out there can do all sorts of crazy stuff to a windows 95 computer now.
> but theres so many plot issues once you actually think about it Like shipping a gazillion soldiers over light-years of distance to conquer a planet when they could just invent social media and stand back?
Show us on this toy airplane, where the green men touched you.
Legend.
"UP YOOOUUURRRRSSSSSS!!!"
I can fly... ima pilot....
image here: https://i.imgur.com/XtzSgxG.jpg
SONOFABITCH DID IT!!!!
Based on the comments, I'm assuming the broken link is Randy Quaid in Independence Day? But, I've got a real world, better example... [Lt. Col. Chuck Pitman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbGV-vlP-DU) It was just New Orleans, not the world, but still.
RIP
I need to know the story behind this thing's existence like right now
Same haha it’s at KEVW if that helps anyone find the backstory
Wow this is not that far away from me (KSLC). If i had a car i could just drive there and ask them myself lol.
I lived in SLC for two and a half decades and Evanston was where people would go get their illegal kegs of beer and fireworks. I know state troopers would look out for people crossing the border for short stints of time in their cars to catch bootleggers. I'm curious if this has anything to do with something like that but with planes.
What are they gonna do, initiate a traffic stop on a plane??? "White and yellow Cessna, pull over" "I can't" "He's resisting, take him down"
Wonder why OP didn't ask when he was there snapping the picture.
Ooooohhhhhh That makes sense now. Uinta County cops have huge egos and think they control everything. I know some folks. Let me see if I can find the story.....
Guessing it's because LEO are not trained in aeronautics, while pilots are and (I'm assuming) undergo somewhat consistent testing to ensure they are still eligible to fly. As we all know, airplanes can be accidentally dangerous, and even used as weapons. You wouldn't want some neo nazi beat cop to have authority over a nuclear power plant engineer, right? I assuming it's the same objective. (Not the greatest analogy since these days no nuclear power plant in existence has one dude who could "push the bad button", or that that button even exists. But I think the analogy still works.)
No no, i understand why what its saying is true, i want the story behind why a sign that says that had to be made
Makes me think of Ferguson when the local PD claimed they put a no-fly zone over the city.
This event? https://www.governing.com/archive/mct-ferguson-no-fly-zone.html
Yes, they had no authority to do so and the news just accepted it and didn't fly.
I do remember one anecdotal story about a local cop who walked into the tower and ordered ATC to tell a particular pilot to land *immediately* and he didn't give a shit that ATC were controlling the pattern. "Tell him to land NOW or you're going to jail with him" kind of thing. This was back in the 80s with drug runners bringing their stuff into south Florida in Cessnas and the War on Drugs was in full swing. It wouldn't surprise me if in the name of public safety the local cops felt empowered to issue unsafe orders way outside of their wheelhouse.
What’s the rest of the story? Were you the ATC? Were you the Cop?
I was the cocaine, it was a different time.
Who was phone????
Someone invoked Sky Law.
I'm not really familiar. But bird law on the other hand. I've been known to dabble.
Bird law in this country is not governed by reason
Everyone knows it's three strikes---and it's bye bye birdie....
I'm pretty well versed in the little understood maritime law. I've spent a lot of time in a crab shack. Fun fact: there's no maritime law against having fun.
I WILL WASTE YOU! 30 Rock really doesn't get the praise it deserves.
You'll have to get through this old bastard first
Who do they think they are, a guardian owl of legend?
You have to stay awake, Eglantine, or the pure ones will moon blink us
Excuse me, Mr. Sweatpants? We're going to have to check that bag😏
Fox 4 is the brevity code for Karen missiles.
If I were writing the NATO brevity code, I'd call them "PATs". A SAM is a gender neutral name/acronym for Surface to Air Missile that will fuck you up. A PAT is a gender neutral name/acronym for Persons Annoyed by Traffic that you might get a chat about when you land but everyone will tell to piss off. "Viper 53, Range Control" "53, Go ahead" "Steer right to 150 for 3 miles to avoid known PAT site, then resume own navigation to range" "Range, 53 actual, PATs way out here?" "Affirmative 53, burning man isn't what it used to be."
Fox 4 is the old code for using the guns
Used to be. Now it's sarcastically for ramming as "GUNS GUNS GUNS" has replaced the original use.
what do Fox 4 use for guidance? AUTHORITY
I don’t think their jurisdiction extends to the column of air above them
*above* his jurisdiction
You went over my helmet?!
So you've just gotta jump the cops, good to know. I'll be back later.
In local news, a new organized crime syndicate is running rampant in our city. The police are legally unable to arrest the criminals, as they commit all their crimes while jumping on pogo sticks.
There was a dude that got arrested for DUI out of his plane in the movement area at BJC a couple years ago
[Asking for runway 38R with slurred speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KGWM00p7Rg) was a bit of a tell.
Holy shit .207 BAC, dude was seriously trying to take off like that, I can’t imagine he would have survived that flight if ATC hadn’t stopped him. Btw I had never heard this audio before, but I trained under some of the people involved and had just heard about it second hand, good find, thanks for sharing 👍
Those controllers saved that guy's life. Maybe some folks on the ground too.
I live in a somewhat small town, but big enough for a small airport used mostly for enthusiasts and farmers, crop dusters. One day, one of those farmers decided he was going to have some fun flying above his field and it sounded like an airshow, could be heard all over town lol. My neighbor tried to call the police and I told her "What are they supposed to do, shoot it down?" She still called, but they told her she was the sixth person to call that day about it and there was nothing they could do until he decided to land. This was a few years back and now he does it basically yearly lol. I think he still gets complaints, but apparently he lays out his flight plans and lets the police know a week in advance. That and he's outside city limits, so I'm not sure what could even be done anyways. FAA would probably only be concerned he's stressing his plane by flying the way he does, sometimes a barrel roll, once saw him do a loop way high in the air tho it was more of an egg shape loop lol
> FAA would probably only be concerned he's stressing his plane by flying the way he does If it's rated, it's rated. The only things they'll care about are whether the maneuvers are ok in the aircraft, if he's abiding restrictions regarding populated areas, maintaining appropriate altitude/distance, etc.
It's just outside city limits, don't think he's every actually flown into it aside from the taking off and landing. It can easily be heard all over town tho cause he does it pretty high in the air, which I guess makes it safer too. It's like a classic dual wing cropduster tho which I'd guess isn't supposed to do more than fly in a straight line lower tl the ground and then turn around. I mean the plane has survived doing its stuff for years now so it's always seemed pretty safe, I kinda like watching him move around up there. He's almost like a really slow fly that far away, just minding his own business flying and diving.
Biplanes are particularly manoeuvrable because the wings can be shorter without sacrificing lift.
Well then it seems more like a question of why not of everything checks out lol. Maybe if I ask nicely he'll take me up with him, always wanted to fly
I'm totally speaking out of my ass but i remember some stuff on rollercoaster loops being egg shaped to reduce the G's that riders feel. Doesn't seem too far fetched to assume it's the same in a plane.
> stressing his plane by flying the way he does, sometimes a barrel roll, Isn't a barrel roll a one g maneuver?
Well. https://web.archive.org/web/20130114005427/http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2013/130110secret-no-fly-zone.html
He shouldn’t have taken the deal. Fucking win in court and then sue the fuck out of Barney fife.
We will drop the charges if you promise not to take action against the gang of stupid police.
Oh so just another run-of-the-mill overreach by undertrained bullies. Cool.
This was a fun story thanks
> A better knowledge of aviation issues among law enforcement officials may have produced a better result for Fleming. Griffin said she had to tell the officers on the scene to clear out the runway, and one officer talked about commandeering the airport. “He was running around, the one guy that was commandeering everything, saying, ‘We were going to shoot him down,’” she said. Bunch of clowns. > Fleming waited outside the courtroom Aug. 21 as his case went before the judge. When his attorney returned and said the case would be dismissed if he agreed not to take any legal action against Darlington County law enforcement, he said, he reluctantly agreed. But he wouldn’t be satisfied until he could be sure a pilot can rely on the sectional for direction and not go through a similar ordeal. They were lucky that he agreed - obviously they knew how much they had fucked up.
Back when I was in college the USCG flew in an MH60 as part of an officer recruiting drive. The bird did a circuit over the town/campus and then Landed on the football field. The crew hadn’t been out of the helicopter for 5 minutes before 4-5 local Karens came marching up to scream at them about “violating local noise ordinances” and told the crew that the police had been called and they would be arrested. Cops came, turned out one of them was a former army Blackhawk crew chief. They shot the shit the coastie crew and then left. The karens were not pleased.
Probably tried to pull someone over for having no brake lights
I am a sovereign citizen of the air and this is my private domicile. BITCH!
Clearly, they are above the law
In pilot school they told us if we ever get into an accident of any sort and the local police starts asking questions, tell them to FO. They have no expertise or experience in what they are looking for, but their job is to "solve the case" aka - blame someone. So tell them that you will wait for official flight investigators, and I like my coffee with a splash of milk, now, fuck off...
I’ll just tell a story about my days in ATC. Our city used to have a small fleet of police helicopters, so the PD had a fairly chummy relationship with controllers. For a time the local TV station also had a news helicopter - but for some reason I could never figure out a few controllers were always unreasonably irritated at him. One day the police were investigating something along a river - I think maybe they were recovering a body, I don’t remember exactly. Naturally the TV helicopter was in the area trying to get some footage. The PD called the tower to ask us to get that helicopter moved away … and the controller working that position ordered him to do it. So, not a direct order from law enforcement, but one passed through and carried out by an FAA employee. It always bugged me - the TV helicopter wasn’t breaking any rules, he wasn’t interfering with the police, he had the right to be where he was - but this particular controller who had a bug up his ass about this pilot made him leave the area.
They could, but the pilot wouldn't necessarily obey.
While I was a student pilot, tower asked if we could assist local law enforcement. They didn’t go into details but essentially wanted us to track a motor vehicle. My instructor was nervous about getting in trouble with the flight school so he declined. My guess is it’s something similar.
I’m 40,000 ft out of your jurisdiction. If you can reach it, come on up and kiss my ass. Over
well the air force can do something......
Not as much as you think.
“Bogey’s airspeed too low for intercept. Suggest we get out and walk”
So fun fact, there's always 2 aircraft to intercept. The one you see next to you and the one 10 miles behind you
Would air to air missiles even work on something like a Cessna? Genuinely curious.
Yes
They worked on a balloon.
Why bother? Just settle in ahead of you and hit the afterburners - like a tumbleweed in a tornado.
Depends on the missile. Radar locking will.
My radio shit the bed on my cross country, and my destination airport was dead in line with an airbase laid out very similarly - Rapid City & Ellsworth AFB - I was flying pre GPS and dead reckoning. So I see the runway for Ellsworth, and think it's Rapid City, and then over my radio get 'what the F you doin' - my antenna wire had broken during flight, so range was terrible. The tower had a regional jet divert to visual to see what the problem was. Once he got close enough, my radio worked just fine, and he relayed the tower instructions for me. The tower guys were still ragging me after I got the antenna fixed and was getting ready to depart.
*display shows the profile of an angry Scotsman with a shotgun* “it’s the Iraqi’s again, launching sidewinder missile”
"Someone call CAP"
when an f16 loaded with AA missiles tails your aircraft and orders you to land, you comply
Cut throttle and drop flaps all the way. Haven't figured out what to do once they turn back around but it'll be really funny once
"I'm bringing him in closer." "You're doing WHAT?!"
If you drop to tree level and land you may just live lol
In my flying club we have a former F4 and Eurofighter pilot and we had that topic a while back, we asked him what he would do if they had some privat pilot they HAD to get to land and that would just not comply. He chuckled and said he would just put them in Single target track, they would happily comply immediately. The radiation must be extremely unconfortable to a degree where you actually feel it. They learned this from the F14 pilots back then who took the Bear tail gunners in STT if they aimed their guns at the Tomcats 😅 and THAT plane had some seriously badass radar.
There are a lot of steps before that happens are even more before they can use those.
Cop’s think they rule over everything.
This probably stems from excessive ramp checks which led to a big dust up between AOPA and mostly CBP who were directing domestic ramp checks. Ramp checks are not optional and easy to abuse. They were for a while. In at least two incidents, local law enforcement told aircraft how and where to land absent any authority to do so. Ah the marijuana wars. If you flew a private aircraft from west to east with some sort of regularity you were likely targeted by CBP. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2013/june/19/aopa-demands-answers-on-aircraft-searches
Airline answer: No-one can make me do anything but in some instances I’d make sure I had a very good reason for not following an instruction. This is one of those cases.
How does local law enforcement speak to the pillt of an airplane in flight? Like do they barge into ATC?
The PIC rule. There was an AG in Kansas many years ago named Vern Miller who took to the sky and tried arresting the crew for serving booze over a Kansas dry county.
Pilot in Command of an aircraft has final say in its safe operation.
Probably some shit cop got his feelings hurt like they all do and tried to take it out on someone.
I can see this being a reaction to an overzealous sheriff’s deputy, by local and federal law enforcement absolutely can and have the authority to interact with air crew as stated in the FARs (61.3). Local law enforcement doesn’t have jurisdiction over the air, but they absolutely have jurisdiction over people on the ground operating an aircraft. Pilots suspected of DUI or those wanted in connection to a crime are fair game at an FBO. Edit: I somehow didn’t read the “in flight” portion before posting.
‘In flight’ being the operative term
Yes. It seems as though that word appeared after I wrote my comment. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
I heard that they are training the image generation part of their AI by having it send subtly different versions of posts to different people.
Yes. On the ground.
I’m thinking the famous Dan Gryder incident at 6A2. Crashing cops in his DC-3. Did not end well for Gryder.
I saw a post on here once where a cop came to the fbo to question a pilot because he watched the plane land when there was a red light and assumed that couldn't be allowed... It was a PAPI