The President Will Be Touring The Region Affected By The Deepwater Horizon Spill Monday And Tuesday

President Barack Obama is visiting beaches in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida Monday and Tuesday, and a complex series of TFRs will accompany him along the northern Gulf Coast. The westernmost TFR goes into effect at 1000 CDT Monday, and the easternmost won't expire until 1415 EDT Tuesday.

Anyone wishing to fly along a region from the Louisiana border to about 30NM west of Pensacola, FL Monday and Tuesday should carefully check NOTAMS before attempting a flight, lest you have an unexpected visit from some slow-flying F-16s.

In areas that are in the outer rings of the TFRs:

• Operations are limited to aircraft arriving or departing local airfields.
• Workload permitting, ATC may authorize transit operations.
• Aircraft may not loiter.
• All aircraft must be on an active IFR or VFR flight plan with a discrete code assigned by an Air Traffic Control (ATC) facility.
• Aircraft must be squawking the discrete code prior to departure and at all times while in the TFR.
• Must remain in two-way radio communications with ATC.

Not authorized are flight training, practice instrument approaches, aerobatic flight, glider operations, parachute operations, ultralight, hang gliding, balloon operations, agriculture/crop dusting, animal population control flight operations, banner towing operations, sightseeing operations, maintenance test flights, model aircraft operations, model rocketry, and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).

In the inner rings of the TFR, only the following flights will be approved:

• Approved law enforcement, military aircraft directly supporting the United States Secret Service (USSS) and the Office Of The President Of The United States.
• Approved air ambulance flights.
• Approved aircraft supporting the oil spill cleanup operations.

Regularly scheduled commercial passenger and all-cargo carriers operating under one of the following TSA-approved Standard Security Programs/Procedures and are arriving into and/or departing from 14 CFR part 139 airports:

• Aircraft Operator Standard Security Program (AOSSP),
• Full All-Cargo Aircraft Operator Standard Security Program (FACAOSSP),
• Model Security Program (MSP),
• Twelve Five Standard Security Program (TFSSP) all cargo
• All-Cargo International Security Procedure (ACISP)

All emergency/life saving flight (Medical/Law Enforcement/Firefighting) operations must coordinate with ATC prior to their departure at the following numbers:

• FDC 0/5589 -- 228-864-3760
• FDC 0/5590 -- 850-266-6921/6920
• FDC 0/5591 -- 850-266-6921/6920
• FDC 0/5592 -- 850-266-6921/6920

Aircraft supporting oil spill cleanup efforts must coordinate approval with the incident commander at 985-493-7607/7804 prior to departure.

Of course, it is all subject to change with little or no notice, so reviewing the published NOTAM would be a really prudent move.

FMI: www.faa.gov