Going through ATL

"Kevin Chandler" wrote in message
...
Chip,

I will be flying a Mooney (N4201U). I will actually be departing on
Sunday
morning for the lake house at Deerfield (TN44). It seems like most of you
know about that airport. The return trip will be all the way back to
Dayton.

I won't know if I am talking to you or not.

Thanks in advance for the information,
Kevin


Kevin,

I'm at work Sunday from 0530 to 1500, and again that night from 2300 until
0700 Monday. We won't implement any "race traffic procedures" until the
afternoon on departures because they are a pain in the @ss for both Tracon
and ARTCC. In fact, IFR departure clearances shouldn't be hard to fit in
until the Nascar Air Force cranks up when the race ends. When you launch
I'll be on Center 133.1 and 127.05 there on the north side of Atlanta. That
is, if we don't have our one radar trainee plugged in at North Departure.
You'll be able to tell if the Center guy is a trainee. Our guy is an
ex-Tower Supervisor from a Level Two and he's struggling. You'll hear the
Delta boys eating his lunch on freq, hehehe. Your flight to TN44, if
launched IFR, will be routed out of the "North Two" Gate, aka NOTWO. You'll
get vectors through the gate (about the ATL010030) from Departure, and then
a handoff to ZTL. We'll clear you direct VXV direct, or just direct TN44 if
you ask.

If you launch VFR, you may be in luck for radar service from A80 going
northbound. If so, you likely will still get terminated as you leave Tracon
airspace. It should be really easy to either pick-up IFR or get F/F from
the Center assuming you beat the race crowd. If you are coming out from
under the Class B VFR along the east side of ATL, you may be far enough east
that your direct route to TN44 will be through a different ZTL sector from
mine. East of a line from LZU (Gwinnett County) to HRS VOR to VXV, you'll
want to be talking to ZTL on freq 134.8. At any rate, we expect to be very
very busy as the race ends but just routine until then. Once the show
starts, you likely won't be able to get an IFR pop-up or pick-up within 80
miles north or east of ATL no matter who you talk to.

As far as Deerfield, for most of us, it's relatively new in the world of
airport ID's. It's a resort airport, right? Some guys who used to fly in
there IFR/IMC before it had the ATC designator would do crazy stuff like
shoot approaches into Campbell County (JAU), cancel below the layer, and
then scud-run down through the weeds to get to Deerfield. That's how I
discovered Deerfield myself, one of those guys scared the daylights out of
me when he didn't cancel and didn't show up at JAU when we went looking for
him. Into JAU, we lose radar and radio with you at about 4000-4500 feet, so
I had no clue he wasn't actually landing there. He called from Deerfield to
cancel. That wouldn't have been you, would it? :-)

Chip, ZTL

I'll try to get those race procedures posted in the next couple of days. I
have to get them from our staff guys, and they haven't bothered yet to dust
them off for us...