The VFR restrictions are not based on the damage a light aircraft could
do, they are based on ramping up the capability of AWACS to track all air
traffic over the US...

Marc Wiese

Marc:

I'm afraid we don't have enough E-3 Sentry (AWACS) aircraft to "ramp up" and
cover all air traffic...There are only 32 total airframes of which one is a
permanent Boeing test bed, two are in Okinawa, two in Alaska, five in the
depot at Tinker AFB, OK, a half dozen or so in Turkey and Saudi (prior to the
current overseas build up).  Then there are always the handful that are
proverbial "hanger queens" which leaves those remaining to split duty between
Noble Eagle sorties and the ongoing training missions required to get new
crew members minimally qualified (and then deployable).  Due largely to the
prior administration's under funding of spare parts, the number of airframes
ready to go to war on any given day is sadly not what it needs to be.

With AWACS capabilities stretched so thin it the task of air sovereignty
therefore must fall  squarely on the shoulders of the three Sector Operations
Centers (SOCs), (the center at March AFB, CA was closed in 1995).  They went
to the National Guard from Active Duty beginning in the mid 90's and it those
folks who have had to pick up the lion's share of tracking all the civil
traffic with in the U.S. (since this tragedy began).  This is not something
they or their parent organization (NORAD) has had to think about in the past
since all their procedures and training has centered on countering the Soviet
Union's Bear G/H bombers and not U.S. airliners.

It has been interesting to watch over the past few years how hard the SOCs
have had to fight for money just to keep their outdated equipment operating.
For instance, the Air National Guard has requested (and been denied) new
equipment that would allow them to data link information to (and receive
information from) the F-15s, F-16s, and AWACS.  There even have been those in
certain political circles who have lobbied long and hard to shut down the
SOCs as "unneeded relics of the cold war"... after all we won that
war...right?  Hopefully the SOCs will finally get the upgrades they have been
consisently turned down for over the past eight years!  The sad thing is
problem doesn't only reside in the SOCs but it's ripe throughout all the
services.

Bottom line for us is: No one envisioned the need to turn our attention
"inward" inorder to prevent a major attack against U.S. cities which is where
we find ourselves now.  As such, it behooves all of us GA pilots to know the
standard airborne intercept procedures, talk to the FAA controllers, and make
sure your assigned mode three code is being seen so there is no ambiguity
regarding who you are, where you are going, and what your intent is.  The
potential is still high for a GA aircraft to make a mistake (like flying into
a free fire zone) and getting killed by an air defense fighter.  Our national
morale doesn't need to take that hit right now in the midst of what we have
already gone through.  We also need to be vigilent of any mid- eastern folks
hanging around the airports for no good reason...the next wave could be
hijacked Lears / Citations, or 747/DC-10 air freighters.  I'm afraid the
fight has just begun and we all need to be ready to act and react when round
two begins.  Until that time we need to be observant of our surroundings and
anything or one that looks out of place.

Doug

RV-9 Wings
13B some day.

The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter.              Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            http://www.linux.org