Robert M. Gary wrote:

When visiting our tower here in Sacramento (contract) you have to call
up and get buzzed through a series of security doors. That's pre-911
and never made sense to me. Just down the street is the FSDO. The FSDO
is apparently #1 on the terrorist watch list. You can't even walk up
to the building w/o being approached by security. The FSDO employees
park in a specical security area just in case you considered messing
with their cars. If you do not have an appointment you are not suppose
to be anywhere near the building. Once you are in you have to get a
badge just to talk to the receiptionist. I've often had to go in there
and spent more time getting the badge than getting the task done. I
guess if the FSDO got attacked the 121 chief check pilots would
eventually lose their check priv, and soon after all airline pilots
would no longer be able to do their recurrent 121 training. Within 5
years things could get irritating if every FSDO was off line.

You're not in AZ are you? I thought the Scottsdale FSDO was the only one
with these ridiculously overdone security procedures. It's laughable.
What kind of damage could a terrorist do in a FSDO office??? Misfile some
documents? I suppose the whole thing is done to make FAA managers feel that
they are important in some way.

As far as the Class D tower security goes, it was probably thought up by
someone who watched that "Die Hard" movie where terrorists take over the
tower and make planes crash. Ludicrous to real pilots and controllers, but
probably a valid scenario to some know nothing bureaucrat.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

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