Let me guess, you live in the Eastern part of the United States, right? If you'd
ever flown out West you'd know how numerous and huge some of the restricted areas
are out there. Flying around them, especially in a 150/152 class airplane, can
literally add hours to a trip.

Most of the R areas, especially the big ones, aren't established for operational
security. Most of them are bombing ranges and the like where they don't want
civilians getting their--tailfeathers shot off. There are execptions, of course,
like the one in Nevada that contains what is popularly known as Area 51 or
"Dreamland". That area is as big as it is partly to give room for strange
aircraft and weapons, but also to keep prying eyes as far away as possible. If
you want an idea just how big a useful presidential TFR or Capital ADIZ would need
to be, take a look at that one. Sorry, I can't remember the number offhand.

On my long solo cross-country I had to change my route because of weather problems
at one of my planned stops. I ended up in Palm Springs and the shortest way home
was through an R area. The FSS briefer told me that I could fly around (not an
option-it was getting late and would be dark before I arrived), wait until the
next day when the area would be "cold", or go straight through at not more than
500 feet AGL. I spent the night at PSP.

The moral: never hesitate to ask if an R area is cold. If it isn't, they'll tell
you and you might save yourself a whole lot of travel time.

Dave Reinhart


A Lieberman wrote:

H.J. wrote:

If I want to fly in some restricted airspace - nevermind the reason - how is
that done?
The chart says the controlling authority is ZLC Center. That's Salt Lake
ARTCC, right?
So if I'm flying VFR, what do I do?
Do I find any low alt freq to the SLC ARTCC in the AF/D and call "Salt Lake
Center. 1234X Request transition through R12345"

Oh yeah, how do we know you are not a terrorist *smile*.

Or work for a terrorist that doesn't want to fly....

I would suspect the area would be restricted for photo opportunities as
well, so taking snapshots may be one of the reasons for restricted
airspace.

Why else would you want to overfly a restricted area? Inquiring minds
like to know....

Allen