Pilot, possibly intoxicated, flies around Philly for 3 hours

In article om,
"John T" wrote:

"Jonathan Goodish" wrote in message


The bottom line is that if the small
fields don't get a grip on REASONABLE security, one of these days
something bad is going to hb_men and there is going to be UNREASONABLE
over-reaction.

Can you define "reasonable security" for us?

Reasonable security would include airport ID badges for those who have a
reason to be on the field, perimeter fencing that is tall enough and
sealed well enough to be a deterrent, gates that work, and some type of
continuous airport surveillence. Those are common sense things that, in
most cases, are SUPPOSED to be done anyway at most of these airports,
and actually serve to protect the aircraft owners based at the field
from theft and vandalism (it's happened around here). My home field has
perimeter fencing on only 3 sides and most of the fencing isn't much
more than waist high. Despite that, they put in gates with key-codes
that have been installed for quite a while but have never been
activated. "Reasonable" means that if you're supposed to be on the
field and can prove it then you won't be hassled. "Unreasonable" is
when they start forcing you to go through the "secure" terminal and have
to ride you to your airplane or hangar in an airport vehicle, watch you
extract your airplane and lock the hangar, and depart... and I'm sure
that wouldn't be the worst of it. Bottom line is that if something bad
happens and some news crew goes out to the local airport and finds
missing fence and gates that are wide open, the situation is going to
get overblown.

Oh, yeah, and enforce the terms of the lease that exists, in most cases,
for those who are using an airplane hangar as a U-Store by throwing them
out. One guy around here was actually bold enough to routinely drive an
18 wheeler through the gate, down the taxiways, and up to his T-hangar
so that he could load and unload things. None of those things were ever
aviation-related as far as I could tell, and if he ever had an airplane
in the hangar it certainly wasn't visible to the naked eye.



JKG