No ADIZ coming to your area? Don't bet on it...
 The Washington, D.C., ADIZ with Flight Restricted Zone |
Imagine this: Every time you want to fly - even to do touch and goes - you have to file a flight plan. Before you can take off, you have to get a transponder code, but the landline you call to get it is busy most of the time. If there is an RCO (remote communications outlet) frequency for your airport, you can rarely get a timely response from an overworked controller. Services are falling off at your local FBO because business is down drastically. Soon, your favorite diner is gone along with other businesses that fail.
Welcome to life in an air defense identification zone (ADIZ).
But there's only one ADIZ, you say. It's around Washington, and that's hundreds of miles away. There's no chance it will ever affect me.
Don't bet on it.
At this moment, New York City has a "temporary" ADIZ. Chicago's Mayor Daley keeps pushing for one. At any of the other 29 Class B airspace areas across the country, there could be an ADIZ at a moment's notice.
That's what happened in Washington, D.C.
"The 'temporary' ADIZ was created on a weekend in response to a heightened national threat level," said AOPA President Phil Boyer. But after the threat level was reduced, the ADIZ remained. And now the FAA wants to make it permanent, and the same thing could happen anywhere.
"That's why AOPA continues to fight so hard against the Washington ADIZ. And why, very soon, we will be asking all AOPA members to join the fight. The D.C. ADIZ was ill conceived and is operationally unworkable. We must stop the specter of an ADIZ in your back yard."
Stay tuned.
September 15, 2005
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