On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 21:46:54 -0700, "nooneimportant"
wrote in OAhCf.46194$V.43804@fed1read04::


The teathered baloons ARE on the border, know of one near big bend area in
TX, and another near Silver City, MN. They don't have TFR's... they have
airspace slightly more restrictive then a TFR... They have plain ole
Restricted Airspace from surface up to fifteen thousand i belive...

Would that be because the balloons are permanent not temporary?

I honestly don't see the UAV's doing all that much to help stop immigration,
still gonna take ground troops to intercept the illegals and shipemback.

Apparently Bush is funding that too. (I posted a link supporting that
in a previous message thread on this same subject.)

After considering the mission of border surveillance a little more, I
came to the conclusion, that the use of sophisticated sensors aboard
the UAVs could probably detect the presence of nuclear materials. I
suppose C-182s could be equipped with the same sensors, but the UAVs
are designed to carry them, and probably other useful things. So if
the US can afford the cost, we'll probably be seeing UAVs deployed
around the entire boundary of our nation. I don't particularly
embrace the resulting potential loss of privacy (nor the airspace
restrictions), but given the popular foreign anti-US sentiment, and
proliferation of thugs equipped with weapons worldwide, an _effective_
border patrol system may be a prudent investment.

That said I don't really have a big prob with this particular TFR, the base
is above what most GA traffic will be operating at. It shares a common
border with the ADIZ which involves ATC contact ANYWAY to transit, and with
ATC communicaiton there is the possibility that you can STILL enter and
transit the UAV TFR's. There are very few airports that will be "Under" the
TFR, and even then do you really expect to be reaching 12k feet in 7 miles?

That sounds like a fair analysis. It just fails to address the
precedent this sets for additional future domestic UAV operations.
There is something eerily Orwellian about autonomous machines watching
from above. Welcome to the 21st century.