Class A airspace
The reason for the Angst about the airspace and us pleasure users is
not about a
1000' (+- altitude errors) infraction of class A airspace, its about
the public crying bloody murder if glider drills an airliner with 150
people on board.
The government officials would love nothing more than to ban ALL
pleasure traffic from the skies if they could.......all we need to do
is give them a reason.
We are maybe 50 thousand people who enjoy the air for pleasure at the
will of the other 300 Million people who live here in the US.
There is no significant financial benefit from us 50 thousand pleasure
flyers, and in fact we are noisy, annoying and scary to at least 50
million of those people.
You see, if we were to kill any significant of them and they got ****ed
off about it....what do you think would happen?
Do you think they would blame the airliners or their pilots....some
might.....but most of the others would say that we dont HAVE to be up
there and are just doing it for kicks anyway.....and have no qualms
about shutting us down.
It was interesting to note how the incident about the Jet that ran down
a glider at 16,000' in Minden Monday.
A reporter described the even as a "Glider hit the Jet" as if he
purposely failed to avoid the jet and aimed for it......I know that
sounds stupid, but it reveals the perception of who needs to do the
avoiding. Basically we are up there for fun and better stay out of
everyones way.
Same thing many years ago when another jet ran down a Cessna near San
Diego that was in contact with the controllers as he was practicing
landings etc.......the loss of life was total with 150+ dead from the
airliner. Again it was the publics perception that the Cessna got in
the way of the jet and was the cause of the accident, when it was the
jet or controllers that screwed up.
Lets not give anyone reason to question why we need to be in the air.
We should NEVER condone airspace violations or willingly accept and
document them, let alone the very organization that governs us, lest we
dig our own graves.
THAT is the point of all this banter!!!!
Ray
|