On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 09:38:18 -0400, Drew Hamilton wrote:

In article , Mutts wrote:
The FAA has given pilots barely 12 hours' notice in each city. "Because they
were issued so late, flight service stations would not have known to warn
pilots who did their flight planning at the end of the business day on
Wednesday about the restrictions," said AOPA Vice President of Regulatory
Affairs Melissa Bailey. "That's just not acceptable."

On the other hand, it's also not acceptable how many pilots don't even
make use of information that is *easily*, *readily* available to them.

Two weekends ago, the Molson Indy was in Toronto and there was a
temporary restriction on flying within 1 nautical mile of the race,
from ground to 5000 feet (mostly because that area was already so full
of blimps and helicopter rides and banner tow flights and whatever).

Anyway, in addition to being in the NOTAMs for the area, it was on
the ATIS for Toronto City Centre Airport (whose control zone the
restriction was in). And for the hour or so that I was out flying,
time and again I'd hear the following conversation:

C-GABC: City Tower, this is GABC with information Lima, inbound
for some sightseeing over the city at 2000 feet.
Tower: ABC, how do you intend to avoid the restricted airspace
at your 12:00?
C-GABC: ...I wasn't aware of any restriction.

It wasn't just one aircraft, either. It was almost every
airplane that was coming in to the city from the surrounding
airports. And without fail, they all said that they'd listened
to the ATIS, but it was apparent that they'd only left it on

Unless they were very familiar with the area it might not have meant
any thing to them. They (some of them) might have been planning on
asking for clarification.

I've been to Toronto a number of times, but I had no idea as to what
the Molson Indi was. Nor would I know the location from that
description except that it was some where in the city. I'm not all
that far away...over in Michigan. Transiting Ontario to New York
takes me very close to Toronto although I've not gone through there in
quite a while.

Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)

long enough to get the information version letter (either that
or they didn't understand the phrase "Pilots are advised that
the airpace within a one mile radius of the Molson Indy and from
ground to 5000 feet is restricted").

I felt bad for the poor controller -- he was working alone, tower
and ground, and having to deal with really busyt airpsace and lots
and lots of pilots who didn't bother getting any information before
their flights. By the end, he was starting to get a little bit
snippy, and to tell the truth, I can't say as I blamed him...

- awh