John Lakesford wrote:
I agree.

And Honeck (according to his address) flies outta Iowa City, IA and not DC.
I fly out of the middle of nowhere and can't imagine what it is like flying
around the nations capitol.

Well, I've flown west of DC many times and into DC once. I flew into
National at night prior to 9/11. It was actually a piece of cake. I
was rather nervous on the way in having to get an IFR reservation, be
within a certain time window, etc., but it was actually much easier than
I expected. I got vectored out of line to let three airliners land and
circled a few times over one of the monuments, I forget which one now,
but it wasn't far from the prohibited area. It was really easy to see
the landmarks at night and it would have been very hard to fly near the
White House and not know it. The Potomac also provides a very good
landmark.

The only hard part was taxing in after landing!


So I will give these guys the benefit of the doubt. They screwed up, and so
have I.

Yes, they did and in a very serious way.

I fly from a fairly rural area (ELM and N38), but if I fly near a
metropolitan area I make sure I'm prepared. If I'm not, then I don't go
there. These guys were unprepared in several very fundamental ways and
shouldn't have been within 50 miles of DC in their stage of preparation.


Matt