Avoid problems going into Salt Lake

[MTBoy]

This is additional information on airman access into Salt Lake during the Olympics. It probably is subject to changes.

From AOPA news dated November 29th:

"FAA is considering airspace restrictions for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games that could close most Wasatch Front airports to VFR operations for up to two months."

"AOPA has learned that security officials are pushing for a 45 nm temporary flight restrictions (TFR) around Salt Lake City from the surface to infinity. That would affect airports from Brigham City to Spanish Fork, and Tooele to Heber."

"While no specific details are available, the restrictions would likely begin in January, AOPA anticipates that VFR flights will be prohibited within the TFR. In addition, IFR access to the TFR area
will require that aircraft land at one of several portal or gateway airports (Boise, Las Vegas, Grand Junction and Colorado Springs) and be subject to a security screening and an accreditation process for pilots. Operators wishing to make application for the screening and accreditation must submit their request using the FAA's designated forms by January 2l,2002."

Poster's note: The forms can be accessed at this website: http://www.uopsc.org/. The application file link is at the bottom of the home page.

"Although AOPA and other organizations have worked with FAA officials for over two years to establish reasonable security procedures for general aviation access in and around Salt Lake City during the Olympics, the September 11 terrorist attack prompted security personnel to re-evaluate those procedures."

"FAA officials will detail the Olympic Aviation Security Plan to the public during a series of meetings to be held throughout northern
Utah in December" (poster's note: 12/4, 12/18, 1/8/2002). "AOPA staff will be attending several of the meetings. Affected pilots are strongly encouraged to attend and learn more about procedures to be followed for each flight and how to become accredited to fly if entry into the TFR area is desired."

 

[Pilotadjuster]

Salt Lake Olympics

Going to the "meeting" tonight with the FAA at Westminster College. I would charaterize it as the "dont even think about flying from January through March" meeting, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. Will post after getting the actual info.

PA

 

[Pilotadjuster]

dont fly to utah in February

As I suspected, the Feds have basically cordoned off Salt Lake City. A 45 mile "veil" area; in order to fly FROM the area you must have security accredidation ($15 fee and a trip to Bureau of Criminal Identification before 1/22/01), submit an application to make your flight, be approved by the security people, then have your aircraft and passengers searched before take off.

Flying into the area, you must go through Boise, Colorado Springs, Las Vegas or Grand Junction. Flying Price--Salt Lake? go to Grand Junction first. Flying SLC-Wendover. OK, but on the way back you have to go to Vegas or maybe Boise (extra 200 miles or so to a 100 mile trip).

Big problems for 135 cargo ops--dont see them being able to fly at all at this point.

Also--basically no Part 91 ops throughout the period; they have banned:
Flight Training
Banner Towing
Shrimp spotting (brine shrimp on the Great Salt Lake)
Sight seeing flights

The only potentially positive news is that they are saying this is for "only 19 days".

Fly Safe and if you can, stay away from Utah 2/6-2/24

PA

 

[MTBoy]

More comments from last night

Pilot adjuster,

Jump in with more comments if some of my stuff seems out of whack here. Any others present at last night's meeting are also obliged.


Went to a FAA meeting last night regarding the flight restrictions in Salt Lake during the Olympics. Jake Garn (former US Senator and Shuttle Astronaut- 12,000 hours under his belt)) was there and gave a briefing on his fight for General Aviation since 9-11.

There will be a 45 mile radius established around the international airport. Any aircraft operator will be required to go through screening, and the crews through an accreditation process, except the 121 airlines (which will be business as usual as they already have a security plan in place). Here are some specifics:

1) The time frame in effect is Feb 6th through the 24th. 19 total days, so they tell us now. There are also event rings around certain sites (Ice Arena at Kerns, for example) with specific TFR periods.

2) Any pilot crewmember seeking to fly between these dates will be required to pass a crminal history background check, get fingerprinted, obtain 2 passport photos, and recieve a photo badge showing that they are "accredited" to fly in this TFR (temporary flight restriction) area.

3) There will be 4 gateway airports inside the 45 mile ring and 4 gateway airports outside the ring. If a corporate, on demand charter, privately owned or cargo aircraft wants to fly from Salt Lake to anywhere, the crew must submit to an aircraft ramp check and develop a passenger manifest showing the names of each passenger, their birthdate, and the number of bags they will have with them. There will be screeners on the ramp, who will check everything out, and bless the aircraft to fly.

Now comes the possibly dicey part- let's say you operate a Learjet and are flying from Chicago to Salt Lake. You will need to land at one of 4 gateway airports outside the 45 mile radius, and these are Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, Boise, or Las Vegas, to go through the accreditation process and aircraft/passenger screening. If the crew has not gone through the background check and accreditation for this program, they must submit to it at one of these gateway airports. This could take hours, or it might take days, depending on any problems with the background check.

Say you are an Captain briefed by NOTAMS that this program is in effect. You get to Colorado Springs, go through accreditation smoothly, but your first officer has questionable background that you didn't know about. He can't get accredited. Guess what, you'll need to fly in an accredited crewmember to complete the trip!

Here is another wrinkle in the process. There are feeder cargo, bank check and film carrier operators here in Salt Lake who do contract work for UPS, Federal Express, the Federal Reserve, and film processors. Let's say you fly a Piper Navajo Monday through Friday for a UPS contractor. You taxi over to the UPS ramp at 5 AM. The screeners are there to screen your cargo and your plane (hopefully enough to make things go smoothly and fast enough to satisfy UPS and FEDEX). You are cleared to fly to Price, Utah. That afternoon you load your Salt Lake bound cargo at Price and guess where you go? To a gateway airport outside the 45 mile ring, because these 4 airports are the only ones with screeners outside the ring! So you could fly southeast to Grand Junction, be screened, load back up, and fly to Salt Lake as a blessed airplane. Or, if you want to gamble and have any money at all, go to Las Vegas and be screened, then fly to Salt Lake. Of course, you might get fired for being very late when you arrive at Salt Lake City.

4) Now, I mentioned that there are 4 gateway airports within the ring, actually 5, but the fifth is Bountiful Skypark and that is available only if your airplane has a propellor on its top, aka a helicopter. Helicopters are the only aircraft to be screened at Bountiful, as of this news. The other airports are Salt Lake International, of course; Salt Lake #2 (which will receive a temporary control tower during that time), Provo, and Ogden. You will be able to fly VFR or IFR between these airports, subject to many of the same rules as they now exist in the Class Bravo airspace, but you will be subject to screening at both ends. Say you want to fly to Ogden from Salt Lake #2- be prepared to be screened and cleared for flight at both ends. That's not to say that you will be cleared- the decision rests with the screeners.

If you fly from an airport that is not a gateway within this 45 mile ring, guess what? You aren't going ANYWHERE. There are not enough screeners to go around, to kick back at airports like Heber, Tooele, Springville, etc. waiting for your sorry _$$. So you won't be flying for 19 days if your aircraft is inside the 45 mile ring at an airport other than a gateway airport. Be sure to move it to a gateway airport before February 6th to conduct your operation from a gateway airport.

5) These activities are prohibited within the 45 mile ring, stretching from Brigham City to the north, to south of Springville to the south, Evanston to the northeast, almost to Wendover to the west - hang gliding, ballooning, skydiving, FLIGHT INSTRUCTION, radio controlled aircraft ( will law enforcement just show up in their cruiser and blow your "clay pigeon" away, then throw you in the pokey?), model rockets (sorry 5th graders), and there are many more.

Well, I just thought you wanted to know how our government is taking care of us. OF COURSE, ALL OF THIS IS SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE REVISION AT ANY MOMENT!!!

 

[Pilotadjuster]

Salt lake olympic fun

Yep--more detail on it, but thats how I recall the meeting (though I walked in after Jake Garn's speech due to the wonderful parking situation at Westminster). Only one thing I heard differently was that Heber Valley WILL have screeners, which struck me as odd. Of course it is close to many of the venues, so maybe thats the rationalization (if there was any for this screwey plan!).

In any case, none of us will be flying; you need accredidation and what the security nazis accept as a "good reason". God only knows what that amounts to. For me, no CFI ride until March, April, who knows when the FAA decides to do them...

As I said, 135 cargo guys on the East side will be destroyed by this. There seems to have been absolutely no thought given to them staying in business.

Good luck and enjoy the nice weather while we can!

Fly Safe!

PA

 

[AlbieF15]

Aviators,

I hate it too. I am an AOPA member--since 81. However--

WE ARE AT WAR.

I don't have an answer for every contingency, but these guys are just trying to keep things as safe as they can. The 1972 attack still burns in a lot minds. The 9/11 attack was an "out of the box" type attack. Nobody knows what the threat is, so the "better safe than sorry" rule applies.

I don't want 135 ops to go under. I also don't want to wake up and see another smoking building, or another day like in Munich in 72. Cut the Feds some slack--they really are trying to defend not only our country, but our guests from around the world. Move your *(&( % plane 50 miles south for 2 months. If the worst thing in the world that ever happened to you was your CFII checkride got delayed or you couldn't get to your Aeronca for some sightseeing on a gorgeous Rocky Mountain day, you have definately got life better than about 99.8% of the rest of the world, and about 95% better than the rest of your countrymen.

I personally am suprised they haven't placed more restrictions on GA. I would be counting my blessings at this point and trying to work "with" the team rather than whining. We got 2.50 avgas, and about 90% of the airspace in the country to go burn it in. We are lucky...

Albie

 

[OviedoBob]

To ALBIEF15:

Your profile suggests a military aviator with little real life experience in "general aviation". You are surprised that no more restrictions are placed on GA. GA can suffer during these Olympics.

Well, to make the Utah skies safe, why doesn't the FAA/Feds ban ALL flying within the 45 mile radius of SLC? No general aviation, no charter, no corporate, not even airlines! Anyone seen within 45 miles of SLC would be subject to military interception and if not identified or responding, then the aircraft would be "shot down".

To me these draconian measures were designed to keep general aviation out of the SLC area because these procedures are designed to be too much of a hassle. Part 135 operators/Part 91 operators thrive on these events. Their business will suffer. There are other ways to control this traffic during the events. But the administrative hassle of these screening procedures will definitely hamper business.

You can be assured that the day will come when all pilots for all flights (even the Aeronca sight-seer) will be subject to intense screening to fly in the other 99% of the sky.

 

[AlbieF15]

CFII. If you are from Oviedo, FL....I Flew in your neighborhood--Arthur Dunn Airpark in Titusville flying jumpers and students. Flew gliders at Seminole Ranch when it was still open. Regularly fly into SFB in a rented Cessna to visit family in Winter Springs.

I know the airspace. You don't *&* about the Kennedy Space Center being temporarily off limits, do you? Olympics are sort of a similar deal in my mind. I love to fly over the Bannana River and Payalinda (sp?) Beach, but sometimes--gotta stay out of the way for reasons of national significance.

Pain in the butt? You bet. Do I like it? H#ll no! But as long as skyscrapers and the Pentagon still smolder and American troops fight on the ground in Afgahistan and around the world, I'll consider our limitations minor at the moment.

I want open skies as much as the next guy...I just think as we get wrapped around fighting about the day to day stuff we forget that these are (hopefully temporarily) extraodinary times.

Fly safe Bob--and I am on your side on this. I love GA, I just don't want us to get labeled as "whiners" for our temporay inconvenienes. Let's hope this too shall pass...

Albie

 

[jaybird]

NASA TRF

Albie, if you're familiar with this airspace then you know how bad it must have been trying to shove close to 300 training aircraft in one practice area. It was a major pain in the butt (especially when it takes three times to launch) and a safety issue too. However, there is more on the line here than convenience and making money. Peoples lives are at risk. A little 150 can do enough damage in the wrong hands.

P.S. Can you believe at least two people busted the 30 mile ring for KSC. Check your NOTAMS people.

 

[Pilotadjuster]

War

Hey, I agree, we are at war. However...if this was all for security, they would have made things just a bit tighter. Anyone can find numerous ways into SLC to cause problems in a small aircraft without even trying hard--just look at a sectional sometime! We are a mountainous state and if you really want to get around radar coverage, its no problem for a determined fanatic. These restrictions are much akin to gun control; the law-abiding pilots will follow them, criminals will not. Just how many F-16s can we have overhead to intercept an aircraft travelling two miles/minute? And when do you shoot them down, when they threaten a building or just because they are there and lost a transponder.... as a military pilot, just imagine having to shoot down a c-172 full of sightseers; or are they terrorists?

And I dont have a *&^%^ Aeronca. I don't own an aircraft, as most GA pilots don't. I rent like everyone else, and would really like to have my FBO in operation when this 19 days are over! In addition, most of the businesses hit hardest by these restrictions were basically out of business for almost 45 days by 9/11 restrictions.

By the way, I have read another writer who pointed out that the last terrorist we caught in this country was a blonde-haired honorably discharged Army vet driving a Ryder truck. You could cause a whole hell of a lot more damage with a tractor-trailer full of C4 or fertilizer than a kamikaze 152...

Just comes down to whose ox is being gored, as usual. Just paid my AOPA dues and if they offered a lifetime membership, I'd consider it.

Fly safe

PA