No, that's absolutly not a dream, all you need is a President with the balls
to do it, hell if we had a Prez with testicals and a certificate, you could
park right next to "America 1" on any ramp, it would be a GA airplane flown
by the prez with an N registration.
OT: did Jimmy Carter fly in a GA aircraft as Prez?

"Bob Gardner" wrote in message
...
Just dreaming....do you think that a President Kerry could prevail upon
the
Secret Service to lighten up when it comes to GA airplanes, or is the SS
beyond the power of the president to change?

It is interesting to watch TV coverage of other national leaders,
especially
Canada, and note the absence of guys with wires in their ears talking into
their sleeves. The Canadian politicos even interact with comedians who
accost them on the street or in government buildings. But nobody hates
Canada..........

Bob Gardner

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
I had several flights scheduled for Friday. The first one in the morning
did
not go; my CFI student and I spent the whole lesson discussing how to
teach
students how to preflight an airplane.

The second was our scheduled air taxi service to Roche Harbor. We left
at
1:00 pm so the TFR did not affect our departure, but the return was at
3:00
pm. Tacoma Narrows is just inside the 30 mile ring so I needed a flight
plan
and squawk. No problem; although I the briefer told me I would probably
have
to deviate to the west in order to spend as little as possible in the
TFR,
ATC just had me fly direct from Roche back to Tacoma, flying over both
the
Bangor and PSNS TFRs and taking the long way through the Presidential
TFR.

The next flight was supposed to be a sightseeing flight at Mt. Rainier,
but
that was delayed. Another pilot had to take that while I flew a student
pilot on a stage check to Hoquiam and back. When we called Tacoma Ground
for
our squawk they had no record of our flight plan, so I called FSS on the
cell phone. The briefer told me that he had left it with my student to
ask
some questions about the IFR/VFR routing; my student thought he had
filed.
It took half an hour to straighten that one out. We managed to depart
TIW
at
7:30, an hour and a half late.

After that there were no problems and we were back at TIW by 9:00 pm.
After
the touch and go at HQM we just called up Seattle Center and they gave
us
the squawk for our return trip. Still, it was obvious the radio traffic
was
much too complicated for a student pilot and I had to help him way more
than
I should have had to.

The other pilot had no problems with the sightseeing flight and none of
the
other instructors reported problems the entire day. Although I monitored
121.5 the whole day, I never once heard a single transmission on it.
That
sharply contrasts with the experience of other Presidential visits when
121.5 was very busy with warnings to aircraft violating the TFRs.

There was one guy, though: he kept insisting he wanted to land at
Renton,
which was inside the 10 mile prohibited area. Seattle Approach told him
several times that his closest choices were Olympia, Tacoma Narrows, and
Bremerton. They argued about it for a good fifteen minutes before the
guy
finally settled on Paine. I understand the guy's frustration but it
seems
inappropriate to take it out on ATC.

Unfortunately, the guys at Kenmore and Boeing Field were not so lucky.
They
were shut down at 2:30 pm yesterday and won't get to open until 8:35 am
today. King 5 (the local NBC affiliate) ran a news story about how the
TFR
was costing Kenmore $75,000 in revenue. So I guess when NBC isn't
trashing
GA for lax security, they sometimes can be persuaded to actually show
some
of the effects of too much security. It isn't just aviation, either.
Towne
Center (a large, upscale shopping mall) was closed because it is too
close
to where Bush was staying, no doubt costing the merchants there a large
fortune. People who drove anywhere near the great man were closely
tailed
by
the cops.

I am not so sure Kerry deserves credit for not having TFRs around him.
He
seems to stay pretty tight within the Presidential TFRs, content with
letting Bush take the heat for his own security.

--
Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor
Port Orchard, WA


If you go around beating the Bush, don't complain if you rile the
animals.