New Power Plant Notam

[LearLove]

This is from the AOPA web site:

Feb. 26 — In response to concerns from security officials, FAA has issued a new nuclear power plant notam. Pilots are still advised not to "loiter or circle" in the vicinity of nuclear power plants, but now TSA is brandishing a stick; pilots who fly suspiciously around the power plants can expect to be interviewed by law enforcement personnel. And if law enforcement isn't convinced the pilot's flight activities were innocent, the pilot's name may be added to TSA's incident reporting system database.

FAA issued this advisory notam rather than reinstating the 10-mile TFRs around all nuclear facilities that was put into effect for a little over a week in October 2001. Some security officials had been pushing for re-closing the airspace around some 90 nuclear facilities, affecting more than 700 public and private airports.

TSA maintains that the incident reporting system is NOT the same thing as the agency's security list, which TSA can use to revoke a pilot's certificate for being a "security threat."

"Nevertheless, the government must not use this advisory to take away pilot rights or to harass pilots who are conducting normal flight operations," said Phil Boyer, AOPA president.

TSA has assured AOPA that pilots conducting operations to or from airports close to these facilities will not be considered loitering. "However, pilots circling as to loiter in the vicinity of these facilities or using the nuclear plants for the purpose of ground reference maneuvers would certainly be questioned," a TSA official said.

 

[*42*]

They have been interviewing people who do this. Usually it's a VFR pilot who is lost at night and flies to the power plant because it's the only lighted structure in a dark area (no one lives near these plants). Hopefully someone with a pilot's license will be reviewing the write ups before the pilot's name goes into a database.

 

[Flylo]

Allow me to save any of you who decide to crash an airplane into a nuclear power station, for whatever reason, a lot of wasted effort. The last thing in this world you want to fly into, if you really want to do some damage, is the reactor building of a nuclear power station.

I worked on these things all over the country from New Orleans to Cleveland and Omaha to Chicago before the nutballs shut down the greatest source of environmentally safe power the earth has ever seen. There are two basic designs in this country, GE and Westinghouse. They are both, for practical purposes, the same.

The actual reactor is housed inside a reactor vessel, this "vessel" is a huge (70 ft. tall x 40 ft dia.) cylinder shaped or light bulb shaped, 6 in. solid steel container that is lined with stainless steel on the inside. They typically weigh between 900 and 1200 tons, that's tons with a "T". The vessel is then encased in a shield wall, the shield wall is essentially a concrete wall, appx. 10 ft. thick, with #18 (2 1/4") and #11 (1 3/8") reinforcing steel bars, set so thick you could barely get the wet concrete to flow through it. There are additional concrete walls and/or floors of varying thickness (1 to 3 ft.) surrounding the shield wall on all levels.

Anybody that thinks anything short of a nuclear bomb is going to break through all that and scatter radioactive particles across the
countryside is sadly misinformed. I don't know if it's the exact truth, but I was told by someone who should have know and it sounds about right, that the vessel and the shield wall were designed to withstand a 100 year tornado, a 100 year earthquake, a direct airliner hit (60's versions) and a large conventional bomb, all at the same time! If you did have a nuclear bomb, why would you waste it on a lousy power station? Without the nuke, you'd do about the same amount of damage flying into the Rock of Gibralter.

And furthermore, if you were up to no good, why in the hell would you be CIRCLING the da*n power station? Building up your courage?? Deciding which window to fly through? Making sure that it really was a power station? Horseshirt!!

Just one more example of government bureaucracy over-reacting to the exagerated concerns of some loudmouthed minority. Personally, I love to circle power stations. I think they are the Sphinxes of our age and just plain ol' neat. But, I guess, at least for the time being, I'll have to content myself with circling nudist beaches where I can do some real damage.